State Tries to Block Fact Finding on Emergency Shelters in Child Welfare Class Action Lawsuit

PRESS RELEASE

Lawyers for Gov. Barnes and state officials ask to move lawsuit to federal court to delay investigation into conditions at shelters.

In a class action lawsuit seeking reform of the child welfare system, lawyers for defendants, Governor Roy Barnes, Department of Human Resources Commissioner Jim Martin, the Department of Family and Children's Services (DFCS) and Fulton and DeKalb Counties, are attempting to block an investigation into dangerous conditions at emergency shelters housing hundreds of children each year in Fulton and DeKalb counties. Lawyers for abused and neglected children in Kenny A. v. Barnes, the lawsuit filed in Fulton County Superior Court last week, asked Presiding Judge John Goger to allow fast-track fact finding into these shelters, described in the lawsuit as dangerous and overcrowded facilities where children languish for months without needed treatment or services, exposed to sexual assault, prostitution, gang activity, and illicit drug activity.

Judge Goger stated from the bench that fact finding should proceed on a fast track and planned to issue an order in the morning of Wednesday, June 19th. Immediately afterwards, lawyers for the defendants filed papers transferring this to federal court, blocking any further action by Judge Goger. Lawyers for the children will now seek an order from the federal court to allow fact finding to begin immediately.

"This effort to evade and delay an investigation is an extremely defensive move that will only further endanger vulnerable children," stated Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights, a national advocacy group for children that brought the lawsuit along with the Keenan's Kids Law Center in Atlanta. "We need to know the facts now before more children are harmed."

The plaintiff-children in the Kenny A. case accuse Gov. Barnes and DFCS of running a dangerous, chaotic and overburdened foster care system that continues to harm children and violate their rights. The lawsuit claimed that: the Fulton shelter frequently exceeds its licensed capacity of 85 children, housing as many as 118 children at one time in 2001; the DeKalb shelter, licensed for 35 children, housed as many as 55 children at times during the last year; and, as many as 28% of the Fulton shelter children and 20% of the DeKalb shelter children were missing on any given day during 2001. The Governor's appointed child welfare monitor, the Georgia Child Advocate, reported in 2001 that the Fulton shelter is "unfit for the children who reside there," and that the DeKalb shelter "is grossly inadequate for use as an 'emergency shelter'."

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.