Georgia's "All Talk, No Action" Approach to Foster Care Harms Children
PRESS RELEASE(Atlanta, Georgia, November 25, 2003) - An expert evaluation released today concludes that Georgia's foster care system in Fulton and DeKalb Counties "for years has been, and remains, grossly inadequate and is failing to provide minimal care and protection for foster children in state custody." Jesse Rasmussen, the author of the report, finds that Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) "demonstratively fails to meet minimal standards for the care and protection of children as required by state and federal law and accepted professional standards."
Jesse Rasmussen has extensive experience in management positions in state agencies responsible for child welfare programs and services. They include serving terms as Director of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and Director of the Iowa Department of Human Services. For this report Ms. Rasmussen reviewed thousands of pages of internal DFCS reports and data as well as transcripts of depositions of high-level DFCS managers. Her investigation found fundamental management failings and a longstanding lack of resources for the state's abused and neglected children.
The report cites as causes for these failures:
1. The reliance on written plans as opposed to action;
2. The failure to secure necessary resources to effect change;
3. The failure to respond to well-documented problem cases with a sense of urgency.
Georgia's child welfare agency "is heavy on planning, and weak on action," Ms. Rasmussen concluded in the report. She found Georgia to be lacking in each of the areas she deems to be primary components of a well functioning foster care system. In her report she cites the State's long history of non-implemented foster care "reform plans" and provides recommendations to finally bring about necessary changes for children. The review was conducted as part of the class action lawsuit, Kenny A. v. Perdue, filed in June 2002 by the national child advocacy group Children's Rights and the Atlanta law firm of Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore in U.S. District Court in Atlanta.
"The harm inflicted on children in Fulton and DeKalb Counties can be clearly attributed to ongoing management failures," said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights and a lead attorney in the lawsuit. "This expert report documents these failures, including an extraordinary failure to bring in available federal funds that could be helping Georgia's abused and neglected children." Georgia has lost approximately $15 million in federal funding over the past two years due to DFCS's poor documentation practices.
Ms. Rasmussen's examination of the state's own data, policies, and reviews demonstrates critical deficiencies in numerous areas, including:
*Caseloads for Fulton and DeKalb DFCS workers are extremely high, with the vast majority of workers carrying caseloads well over the number allowed under national standards. In some instances caseloads are almost three times the standard;
*The turnover and vacancy rates of workers are unreasonably high. As recently as October 2003, 14 of the 20 caseworker positions were vacant in the DeKalb DFCS unit responsible for investigating reports of abuse;
*There are a shortage of foster homes, especially for adolescents and children with emotional and behavioral issues, resulting in an unreasonably high percentage of Fulton foster children being placed in group homes or living in overcrowded placements;
*Children currently in foster care have spent, on average, approximately 3 years in foster care -an unacceptable length of time given that foster care is intended to be temporary;
*It takes DFCS on average 5 years to find adoptive homes for Fulton foster children;
*DFCS's computer system is inaccurate and lacks the most basic information concerning children, such as their current location, the history of their foster care placements, and information on foster home vacancies.
DFCS is plagued by a systemic lack of accountability that has allowed children to suffer unnecessarily for years.
Plaintiffs in the Kenny A. v. Perdue lawsuit have obtained over 75,000 pages of documents from DFCS and the Department of Human Resources and have taken more than 25 depositions of DFCS managers and administrators. Fact-finding is expected to be completed by the end of this year, with a trial expected as early as the summer of 2004.
Children's Rights works throughout the United States in partnership with national and local experts, advocates and government officials to document the needs of children in the care of child welfare systems. Children's Rights helps develop realistic solutions and, where necessary, uses the power of litigation to ensure that reform takes place.
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