Foster care system accused of “warehousing” kids without “necessities”

A group of Tennessee foster children has sued the state, alleging that its Department of Children’s Services “is failing the children it is intended to protect to protect those in its care.”

Newsweek reached out to DCS, which deferred comment to the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office. The office had no comment.

Why It Matters

This lawsuit spotlighted ongoing challenges in Tennessee’s child welfare system, raising national concerns about the care and safety of foster children. The complaint suggested that violations persisted despite previous federal oversight, and that thousands of children in state care remained at risk.

What To Know

The 74-page class-action suit filed Monday alleges that DCS “warehoused children in spaces which lack the necessities of life,” according to a complaint reviewed by Newsweek.

The suit, filed on behalf of more than 9,000 Tennessee foster children, involves 13 foster children, aged 1 to 16, who seek to represent the interests of the state’s broader foster care system.

The plaintiffs, through their attorneys from the New York-based nonprofit advocacy group A Better Childhood and the law firm Bass, Berry and Sims, accuse DCS of housing children in conditions they described as unsafe and lacking “the necessities of life,” including adequate food, bedding, soap and potable water.

“Intended as temporary placements, DCS leaves children in these situations for months on end,” the lawsuit said. “Once placed in ‘long-term’ placements, children fare no better. DCS contracts with facilities which possess well-known track records of physical, mental, and sexual abuse.”

The complaint states that children were kept in transitional homes established after earlier reports revealed children were sleeping in DCS office buildings due to a shortage of foster placements, but that these settings continued to provide substandard care.

The plaintiffs argue that children spent extended periods in temporary placements without adequate provisions, citing not only unsafe and unsanitary conditions but also failures to provide sufficient health care, mental health services, and education.

Marcia Lowry, founder and executive director of A Better Childhood, told Newsweek that her organization became privy to Tennessee foster system complaints last year.

“These are kids in a variety of circumstances, but all of them are children in foster care, and all of them are children who are being harmed by the system in Tennessee,” Lowry said.

It led to a year of research, investigation and discussions with those involved to determine whether a lawsuit was warranted.

The decision to file on behalf of the 13 individuals was based on the fact that some of them were in the places mentioned in the suit, like assessment centers or sent to out-of-state institutions lacking basic, necessary services.

“Some of the children were placed basically without any regard to their needs,” Lowry said. “Some of the children are in a facility that was actually closed years ago because it doesn’t have potable water there, but the children are there now. I think that some of the facilities do not have cooking facilities, so the children are not even getting decent nutrition. They are in facilities that don’t provide education to them, and it says they’re providing education, but do not in fact have teachers and distribute basically worksheets.

“I suspect—I don’t know this for a fact yet—but I suspect that there is no treatment going on among the children because there’s no programming for them. Those are the kinds of things that we’re concerned about and that we think are happening,” she said.

Lowry said that one of the children is in a facility where he’s afraid and tells people so. Other children have suicidal ideation, and “some of them are trying to kill themselves because they’re so depressed about the facilities they’re in.”

Most children bounce from place to place, she added.

The complaint cites specific child experiences, including that of Dewayne W., a 15-year-old who spent three years in DCS custody and purportedly experienced seven placement changes and “unnecessary harm through unsafe living conditions and deprivation of adequate education.”

Another plaintiff, Jasmine G., 15, entered custody at age 12 after being trafficked by her biological mother. The suit states that DCS failed to provide the necessary therapy for her trauma and placed her in an out-of-state facility over 1,500 miles away, for more than 18 months, due to in-state placement shortages.

The suit also alleges that DCS caseworkers are “overworked and undertrained,” echoing concerns that led to previous oversight following a 2000 class-action suit called “Brian A.”

That suit was named after Brian A., a 9-year-old boy who was one of eight named plaintiffs at the time the case was filed in 2000. At that time, he had spent seven months in a dangerous and overcrowded emergency shelter in Memphis and was housed with older boys accused of violent crimes and sexual assaults.

Brian A. was not provided basic mental health treatments, casework services, or appropriate schooling, as DCS had nowhere else to place him.

In 2017, former DCS Commissioner Jim Henry said this about that lawsuit and the approximate 16 years in which DCS was tasked with mandated milestones to overhaul its foster care system: “We’ve got to be honest: we didn’t have a system here in 2000. I mean, we deserved to get a lawsuit. The fact is, we’re a much better system now. We’re better off for it, the kids are better off and I think the taxpayers are better off.”

That lawsuit ultimately pointed to a decline in the quality of the foster care system after federal court oversight ended in 2017. Plaintiffs now claim that the absence of supervision has resulted in diminished rights and protection for Tennessee’s foster children.

“Case workers turn over, the retention rate is not high,” Lowry said. “And so workers don’t stay in their jobs, partly because the workers themselves are people who are, most of them, committed to trying to help kids and then find that they cannot because their costs are too high, or because the state does not have the right kinds of programs for these kids. There are systemic problems, and certainly in Tennessee.”

A 2020 report from the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth said that Tennessee ranked No. 1 nationwide for how often foster kids have to move to a different home, according to Nashville-based WKRN-TV. That year, roughly 33.7 percent of children in the state’s foster system were placed in three or more homes during their first 12 months in custody.

What People Are Saying

The lawsuit: “Foster care is intended to be temporary, until children can either be reunited with their families or placed in another permanent home; however, children in Tennessee linger in foster care and are moved from place to place without the opportunity for a stable childhood.”

What Happens Next

The lawsuit is expected to proceed through the federal court system. State officials have not issued a public response on the matter as of publication. Future developments will depend on the court’s timetable and any decisions regarding preliminary injunctions, discovery, or potential mediation.

A Better Childhood is currently involved in 11 lawsuits in states nationwide. Lowry expects Tennessee to attempt to dismiss the suit.