A federal class-action lawsuit detailing harrowing experiences of 10 children in Oregon’s foster care system comes as no shock to former foster youth Elizabeth Graves.
“It should have happened a long time ago,” she said.
A national watchdog group began investigating Oregon’s foster care system more than eight months ago and joined co-counsel to file the class-action lawsuit April 16 on behalf of all foster children and future foster children in the state.
As Street Roots first reported on the day of the filing, the plaintiffs want the governor and the leaders of the Oregon Department of Human Services and Child Welfare held responsible for extreme deficiencies in the foster care system, which are further traumatizing children in their care. The plaintiffs are demanding a complete transformation of the system.
“They need to be held accountable to make sure kids are safe and doing OK,” 27-year-old Graves said. “We’ve never really tried a full gut of the system, but the state needs to take a step back and realize this is the future generation. There are a lot of foster kids in Oregon.”
Approximately 4,000 children are in the state foster care system. The lawsuit states Oregon has failed to provide children in its care with appropriate services and stable family-like homes and is therefore violating the children’s constitutional rights.
“We are seeing kids not getting the services they need when they hit that first foster home,” said attorney Chris Shank, from co-counsel Disability Rights Oregon. “Then, they get moved farther away from home and experience multiple placements. Then their mental health needs grow, and they might end up in an institution. We’ve seen the cycle become more dramatic.”
Sharing stories of abuse and neglect
Graves said the problems are widespread.
“I don’t know any foster kids who don’t have issues,” she said. “Neglect at the very least. One of my friends was physically abused by a foster parent, another friend was sexually abused, and the case worker did nothing about it.”
Graves said that she also experienced abuse during placements but that no one believed her or bothered to look into it.
“One foster mother would make me sit in the corner until it was time to go to bed,” Graves said. “At another home, the foster parents would lock up the food and had cameras in the house at night. We were locked in our bedrooms, and we couldn’t use the bathroom.”
Attorneys representing the children in the lawsuit said the state is getting farther and farther behind in finding quality placements, and it appears to be unable to develop new placements for kids.
“Facilities where some of these kids are being sent are horrendous,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of A Better Childhood, the New York-based watchdog group that initiated the lawsuit. “Why have they (child welfare employees) not been developing additional services for kids in the last period of time? This problem has existed for a very long time … five, six, probably 10 years.
“I think the root cause is nobody’s in charge and nobody’s paying attention,” she said. “That’s easy to do when the clientele are children, because children are voiceless.”
THEIR STORIES: Testimonies from foster youths suing Oregon
One of the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, 9-year-old Unique, has bounced from placement to placement without getting the recommended therapeutic care she needs. After a series of disruptions in care, she ended up in an out-of-state residential treatment center.
“Imagine being 9 years old, being sent out of state to Montana and staying in a 108-bed facility,” Stark said. “It’s hard to wrap my mind around a 9-year-old having that experience.”
According to the complaint, staff members at Acadia Montana used four-person holds, two-person holds and seclusion to deal with Unique’s outbursts. She also was given anti-psychotic and anti-convulsant medications. For six months, Unique was left in the facility without any visits from child welfare workers.
Recently, an Acadia facility in New Mexico was shut down after allegations that staff abused children in that facility.
The complaint also details the story of 13-year old Simon S., who was returned to his parents despite having accused his father of physically abusing him. In addition, the complaint states that Simon disclosed sexual abuse by a relative with whom he attended school.
Despite multiple reports about the sexual abuse, Simon said, DHS took no action. He took matters into his own hands by beginning to come to school with feces in his underwear, pants and pockets as a way to protect himself from further molestation.
“The fundamental reason we’re bringing this case is that DHS is failing as a parent,” said attorney Paul Southwick, with co-counsel Davis Wright Tremaine. “What that means is they’re not providing services, stability of housing, or family and adult relationships, which kids need to be happy.”
Plaintiff Bernard C. is a transgender 15-year-old who came into foster care with significant trauma. According to Southwick, DHS’s failure to address his flashbacks, intrusive thoughts and nightmares has resulted in Bernard’s experiencing ongoing depression, anxiety and anger.
Southwick visited Bernard at his current placement at River Rock, a shelter facility housed in a section of the Douglas County juvenile dentention center. A psychologist previously recommended Bernard be placed in a supportive, predictable, loving home environment.
“Walking into a jail with no windows and hearing a trans kid talk about how lonely and isolated he was being cut off from siblings, cut off from an affirming therapist, cut off from testosterone and antidepressant medications … it just broke my heart,” Southwick said.
Unfortunately, Southwick said, queer and transgender children often encounter foster families who aren’t willing to accept them in their homes due to religious reasons or an overall discomfort with the idea.
“Foster families need to know, when they sign up for foster care, they’re signing up for any foster youth, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” Southwick said.
He said 20% of Oregon foster youths older than 12 identify as transgender or queer – sexual or gender minorities – which is about twice as many as in the general population.
“While there are many rights that are on the books for these kids, those rights are not being enforced, or the rights are not being experienced by the youth,” Southwick said. “I believe it’s in part due to the shortage of case workers.”
Searching for solutions
To recruit more case workers and fill the vacancies, Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill to eliminate the bachelor’s degree requirement for case workers and certain DHS employees. Those with A Better Childhood, which is working on eight child-welfare-related lawsuits across the country, consider this legislation, House Bill 2033, alarming.
“Nationally, the trend in better child welfare systems is to require more experience and more training for workers,” Robinson Lowry said. “I think it is a real disregard to children to say workers can have less and not more education.”
She said other states, including Tennessee and New Jersey, are making significant progress with their child welfare systems with the help of strong administrators and well-allocated funding.
“Some of the money being used (in Oregon) for out-of-state institutions and other shelters could certainly be used to create better programs for kids in the state,” Robinson Lowry said. “Programs which are licensed and supervised, where the state can be assured the kids are getting the right treatment and services and kids are going into appropriate foster homes.”
“I think if a system is strong, if workers answer their phone calls, if there are good places to put kids, if foster parents are satisfied with the services they’re getting and feel like they’re doing something good, I think you can find good foster parents,” she said. But this is not the case in Oregon, she added.
An opportunity
It took a lot of therapy for Graves to realize the trauma in her life was not her fault.
“You can’t help a child if you keep moving them,” she said. “Emotionally, they’re going to say, ‘This is just another place, just another home that will say I don’t want you anymore without helping you by figuring out what is going on.’”
Graves is now considering becoming a foster parent herself, someday.
“It’s touching,” said Shank, from Disabilities Rights Oregon. “These children have been burned by a system, but their motivation to help other youth so they don’t have that same experience is very telling of the resiliancy of the human spirit.”
“So many of these kids just need a little help and a stable loving environment,” Robinson Lowry said. “Kids are resilient if they’re given the opportunity. They can do miraculous things.”