Juan F. v. Rowland: Connecticut

When Children's Rights first became involved with this case, Connecticut's under-funded and overburdened Department of Children and Families (DCF) routinely put children at risk of harm. DCF failed to provide appropriate placements and basic services for foster children and failed to adequately investigate reports of abuse and neglect. Social workers carried caseloads twice the national average. Training for workers was grossly inadequate and the Department lacked the ability to track basic data and information on children in state custody. The lawsuit, filed in 1989, resulted in a comprehensive consent decree in 1991. Since then, Children's Rights has been working with a court-appointed monitor to watch over DCF's performance. Children's Rights has addressed non-compliance through negotiations and, when necessary, through court proceedings to enforce the Consent Decree. While considerable improvements have been made in areas such as overall funding for DCF, the creation of a comprehensive training program and an information system that can accurately track critical information concerning children, the state and DCF have repeatedly failed to comply with numerous areas of the Consent Decree.

In February 2002, the court approved an 18 month transition plan, which shifted emphasis from the specific "process" requirements of the Consent Decree to a more flexible management system, under which DCF agreed to meet specific outcome measures. If DCF met the measures, and if they could sustain their success, the plan would have allowed the state and DCF to exit from the Consent Decree and Court involvement. In the Summer of 2003, the Monitor released several reports which concluded that DCF had failed to meet Court-ordered goals in most of the fundamental areas, found that DCF was routinely depriving foster children of opportunities to be adopted, and found that, rather than improving children's lives, "multiple traumas associated with long lengths of stay in DCF custody, such as multiple placements, separations from siblings, abuse in custody, and multiple social workers, worsened their emotional and mental health."

As a result of this dismal performance, and in light of over a decade of the state's making and breaking promises to its children, on October 7, 2003, Children's Rights obtained an extraordinary court order approving a new agreement reached with the Governor and DCF Commissioner that avoided a contempt hearing and possible court-ordered receivership. Under the new Agreement, the state admitted its longstanding non-compliance and failures. For the first time ever in the nation, management authority over the state foster care system has been transferred to the federal court through the Court Monitor, with the consent and cooperation of the Governor and DCF Commissioner. The Agreement created a three-member Task Force including the Monitor, the senior state budget official and the DCF Commissioner, with ultimate power over the Department in the hands of the federal court. By early 2004, the federal Monitor will develop a new set of mandated outcome measures to be met by November of 2006. If DCF can meet these measures by then, federal court oversight will end; if DCF fails to comply, oversight will continue until the improvements are made. The federal Monitor under this new agreement has the powerful potential to bypass political and bureaucratic barriers that have prevented change for so many years. Plaintiffs are hopeful that this will allow for the kind of sweeping changes in management and accountability - and, most importantly, improvements in the lives of abused and neglected children - that have been lacking in Connecticut for so long. Children's Rights will continue to be a watchdog over the State's compliance with the new Agreement.