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View Full Version : Class action suit certified in GA. Services, family maintenance stressed


Fern5827
August 22nd 03, 08:20 PM
Oversight unit created to examine and discipline caseworkers who do NOT foster
safety for children. Termination and other methods will be employed by this
new supervisory unit.

Subject: GA, Georgia creates oversight unit for cw leaving kids wrongly
From: (Fern5827)
Date: 8/22/2003 3:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id: >

Georgia creates an oversight unit to supervise the conduct of caseworkers who
do not act promptly enough to take children from dangerous situations.



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[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 8/22/03 ]

Foster care suit expanded
Judge grants class-action status

By STEVE VISSER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge has strengthened a lawsuit that claims Georgia's foster care
system illegally allows abused and neglected children to languish in state
custody, sometimes for years.

U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Shoob in Atlanta has granted class-action
status to the suit, which seeks to force an overhaul of the state Division of
Family and Children Services in Fulton and DeKalb counties.

DFCS has come under fire over the years following the deaths of children in
both counties. The deaths were blamed on mistakes by social services workers.

The lawsuit, with nine children as named plaintiffs, was filed by Georgia
attorneys and the New York-based advocacy group Children's Rights in June 2002.

"This is a complete victory for foster children in Atlanta," said Ira
Lustbader, an attorney with Children's Rights. "We are now gathering evidence
to establish at trial that the foster care system is in need of an entire
overhaul."

The suit comes as DFCS faces increasing pressure to reform. Just this week, the
agency's investigators found DeKalb child welfare workers repeatedly made
mistakes and violated policies in the case of a 2-year-old boy who died after
allegedly being beaten by his stepfather.

Authorities say Kyshawn Punter died Aug. 14 after he was beaten by his
stepfather, Shaun Stewart, 25, who has been charged in the boy's death. DFCS
Investigators said caseworkers made numerous decisions that placed Kyshawn in
harm's way.

The federal lawsuit charges that Georgia's current social services system fails
at both ends of child protection. It doesn't work with families well enough to
reunite children safely with parents, nor does it move children to adoption
within a reasonable length of time.

"You either rehab the family on the front end . . . or, on the complete back
end, get them to adoption," said Don Keenan, a Atlanta attorney who filed the
lawsuit with with Children's Rights.

"Nobody believes they should languish in state custody or in foster care,"
Keenan said. "That is the worse thing in the world for them."

Keenan, who has made his reputation suing the state on behalf of neglected or
abused kids, and Lustbader hope a court victory, if it occurs, will lead Shoob
to demand that the state vastly upgrade the foster care system, with continued
court supervision. The trial on the suit is not expected to get under way until
next summer.

A spokesman for DFCS said the agency has been implementing reforms to better
protect children and that the lawsuit has the potential to make those reforms
much more costly.

"The question is not what we have now but where we're going," said Jed
Nitzberg, spokesman for DFCS. "Do we want improvements? Yes. Do we want more
resources? Yes, and we're getting them. What we're concerned about is how we
get there. We feel we have a plan in place. What the state doesn't need at this
time is very expensive outside control because, frankly, the risk to the state
budget is we could end up paying millions of dollars we don't have."

Nitzberg said the state closed its two shelters in DeKalb and Fulton counties
before the suit was filed. The lawsuit described overcrowded shelters in which
often unsupervised children faced dangers ranging from rape to the lure of
pimps and drug dealers. Since the shelters are now closed, Shoob dismissed that
issue from the lawsuit.

Although Keenan charged that DFCS seldom disciplined social workers for leaving
children in dangerous situations, DFCS created a special unit to investigate
whether social workers were at fault in cases where children have been harmed,
Nitzberg said. "We suspend people, we terminate people," he said.









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http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0803/22foster.html


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DESCRIPTORS; FOSTER CARE, DFACS, DFCS, GEORGIA, CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT, CPS