Alaska Child Welfare System Has ‘Long Failed’ Kids in Foster Care, Class Action Alleges

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

The directors of Alaska’s Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) and Office of a Children’s Services (OCS) face a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the state’s child welfare system has “long failed” those in foster care, in particular Alaska Native children. 

The 90-page lawsuit alleges the OCS has long known of the issues plaguing Alaska’s “dysfunction[al]” child welfare system yet failed to make any meaningful improvements, even after establishing in 2018 a two-year “program improvement plan.” The complaint alleges the state’s problematic child welfare system has disproportionately harmed Alaska Native children, who the suit says are seven times more likely to be in foster care than non-Native children. 

“Of about 3,000 children presently in out-of-home care, roughly 2,000 are Alaska Native,” the lawsuit states. “Despite this, OCS has failed to place these Native youth in culturally appropriate foster homes and provide them with necessary services—violating [the] language and intent of [the federal Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978]—often inflicting deep wounds of cultural loss in the process.” 

According to the case, state officials, including DHSS Director Adam Crum and OCS Director Kim Guay, continue to operate Alaska’s child welfare system “without regard to reasonable professional standards,” and while exhibiting “deliberate indifference to the ongoing harm to the children who depend on the state for protection and care.”

“This lawsuit seeks to have Alaska’s child welfare system brought into compliance with applicable federal law and constitutional standards,” the complaint states. 

According to the filing, the persistent problems within Alaska’s child welfare system including worker caseloads in excess of what is safely manageable and high caseworker turnover, which causes mission-critical tasks to go unfinished. Further, the lawsuit relays that child placement instability within the program threatens to exacerbate behavioral issues for children who’ve already experienced a traumatic removal from their parents. 

The suit also states that the program does not have enough adequate foster care placements, which leads to children being placed in “overly restrictive facilities or homeless shelters,” or, in extreme cases, forces them to sleep in the OCS’s offices. 

Moreover, the case charges that Alaska’s child welfare system has failed to provide services or support to foster children or to their foster or biological parents, and provide timely case plans and adequate permanency planning. 

Per the lawsuit, Alaska OCS caseworkers have caseloads that are “much higher than professional standards,” and “more than 3x the national average.” The agency recently admitted, the suit says, that its turnover rate was at an all-time high of more than 59 percent, up nearly 12 percent from the previous year. Alaska’s continually growing pile of caseloads, combined with “an unstable workforce,” means that the state OCS cannot protect children in foster care or meet the needs of the children and families that it serves, the lawsuit scathes. 

“In a vicious cycle, this turnover is both a cause and effect of high caseloads,” according to the filing. “This unstable and insufficient workforce creates a ‘long-lasting and pervasive negative impact’ that ‘cannot be overstated.’” 

Placement instability is also among Alaska’s foster care problems, the suit continues. Although research shows that stability is critical for foster children, OCS, according to the case, “consistently shuffles children across placements,” and has acknowledged that it has historically fallen below the national standard in placement stability. This problem is also linked to OCS’s apparent failure to provide enough support for children and foster parents, the lawsuit claims. 

“When placements disrupt, OCS forces children into whatever placements remain available, regardless of what they need,” the complaint says. “Some children are shipped out-of-state, thousands of miles from their homes and cultures. Others are placed in overly restrictive settings or in facilities that do not meet their basic needs—often because they have nowhere else to go.” 

Further still, the Alaska OCS has failed to provide long-term case planning to ensure reunification or that children are positioned for adoptive placements when reunification is not an option. This has caused some Alaska children to “languish in foster care for years,” often until they age out of the program, the suit alleges. 

“OCS does not prepare the foster children that age out for Independent Living and, instead, allows many to age out into homelessness or into criminal conduct,” according to the complaint. 

Unlicensed kinship foster homes are also shortchanged by the state, the case claims. According to the lawsuit, kinship foster homes “struggle to remain afloat without additional help,” and the OCS, the suit alleges, has “completely disregarded its statutory duty to assist them in becoming licensed.”

The lawsuit looks to represent all children for whom the Alaska OCS has or will have legal responsibility and who are or will be in the legal and physical custody of the OCS. The case also looks to represent “subclasses” that include Alaska Native children who are or will be entitled to federal protection under the Indian Child Welfare Act, and children who currently reside or will reside in a kinship foster home, i.e., the home of a family member, who meet the criteria to receive foster care maintenance payments under federal law. Lastly, the suit looks to represent children who are or will be in foster care and experience physical, cognitive and psychiatric disabilities as covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.