For years in Tennessee, the Department of Children's Services (DCS) routinely housed children in emergency shelters and other temporary holding facilities for upwards of six months because the state had nowhere else to put them. Children in the system were also bounced through many inappropriate foster placements and, though the children stayed in state custody for extended periods, DCS made little effort to provide them with an education, return to their parents, or adoption.

In response to requests from local advocates to investigate DCS's systemic failings, Children's Rights partnered with attorneys across the state in May 2000 to file a suit on behalf of the over 9,000 children then in DCS custody. Intense negotiations produced a settlement agreement in August 2001. The agreement, which is fully enforceable in court, imposes sweeping reforms on Tennessee's child welfare system. Since the August 2001 settlement, Children's Rights has been actively monitoring DCS's compliance with the terms of the Brian A. settlement, including through numerous regular meetings with the independent Monitor, representatives from the Tennessee Attorney General's Office and numerous senior DCS administrators. Some needed reforms have been implemented. DCS has created, for the first time, a Quality Assurance division to ensure that children are being adequately served. DCS also hired 350 new caseworkers; closed an unsafe 250-bed orphanage-style facility; and closed numerous inappropriate "in-house" schools while increasing efforts to integrate foster children into public schools.

Notwithstanding these improvements, in November 2003, after reviewing the Monitor's reports detailing DCS's failures to comply with most of the settlement's provisions, Children's Rights filed a motion in federal court asking Judge Todd Campbell to find state officials in contempt of court and to order immediate compliance with the terms of the settlement. The motion also asked the Court to appoint an independent special administrator with the authority to develop and implement a plan to ensure Tennessee makes the many specific reforms called for by the settlement or, in the alternative, for an order requiring DCS to itself develop and implement such a plan.

On December 29, 2003, plaintiffs reached a stipulation with the state resolving the contempt motion. The stipulation, which has been approved by the Court, requires DCS to work with a technical assistance committee (or TAC) composed of five national child welfare experts to develop and put into effect a comprehensive and detailed "implementation plan." The plan, which is to be approved by the TAC and the Court, is to be a blueprint for carrying out the many reforms called for in the settlement. It must address a number of identified problem areas for DCS by setting forth, for each substantive area, goals, strategies, action steps, benchmarks, persons responsible, and necessary and committed resources. The key terms of the implementation plan will be enforceable as a court order.

In the stipulation, defendants concede that they have not fulfilled a number of terms of the settlement agreement. The stipulation also delays by 15 months, from March 2006 to June 2007, the first date on which defendants may seek to exit from any portion of the settlement agreement. So as to provide defendants' with breathing room to develop and put a suitable plan into effect, plaintiffs have agreed not to seek a finding of contempt based on defendants' non-compliance with the settlement agreement for a period of 12 months, reserving the right to return to the Court for any violation of the settlement agreement that endangers the safety or well being of class members and to seek a finding of non-compliance/contempt for defendants' failure to adhere to the central terms of the implementation plan.