North Carolina’s Foster Care System Operating in a ‘State of Crisis,’ Class Action Suit Alleges

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North Carolina’s foster care system has long operated in a “state of crisis” that threatens the safety and wellbeing of foster children, a proposed class action lawsuit against the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) alleges.

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The 71-page case details allegedly widespread, systemic issues in North Carolina’s state-supervised, county-administered child welfare system. The lawsuit accuses the DHHS, Mecklenburg County, the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services-Youth and Family Services, Gaston County and the Gaston County Department of Social Services, among others, of failing to fulfill their obligation to protect vulnerable children in state custody from harm.

According to the North Carolina foster care lawsuit, the defendants, including North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, have failed to license, recruit and retain a sufficient number of foster homes.

“Without appropriate and supported foster homes, or appropriate specialized treatment programs, agencies must cycle children through homes, institutions, group placements, and other temporary and emergency placements with disturbing frequency,” the case summarizes. “Additionally, the lack of foster homes creates an overreliance on placements that are unsafe and inappropriate for children, including congregate care settings.”

In fact, the suit contends, foster children in North Carolina have been forced to sleep in jails, the offices of social service departments, homeless shelters, hospital emergency rooms and hotels due to the defendants’ alleged lack of appropriate placements. The filing notes that this failure has also led to a dramatic increase in placement instability, with co-defendant Kody Kinsley, Secretary of the DHHS, having acknowledged, the suit relays, that “among the children who struggle to find an appropriate placement that have been referred to the department for additional help and coordination, a quarter of these children have been moved fifty times or more.”

The lawsuit also highlights North Carolina’s “crisis-level” staffing problems, which are allegedly fueled by unmanageable caseloads and high caseworker turnover. Per the filing, the county defendants have failed to comply with caseload standards for caseworkers, and the DHHS has failed to take meaningful steps to address the issue despite decades of reports and audits demonstrating that unmanageably high workloads for North Carolina workers compromise their ability to keep children safe.

The suit claims the DHHS has failed to develop and update comprehensive case plans for children and families, instead using “cookie cutter” case plans that are not regularly reviewed. Per the filing, these case planning issues impact reunification and permanency efforts and prevent foster children from receiving the supportive services they require.

One of the suit’s nine plaintiffs, an eight-year-old boy from Gaston County, has languished in foster care for half his life and gone without receiving consistent, necessary mental health or medical treatment, the complaint alleges. As the case tells it, North Carolina foster cases such as the plaintiff’s are often poorly managed partly due to the DHHS’s unreliable case management system.

The plaintiff’s caseworker says she was “surprised and distressed” to find that the Gaston County Department of Social Services was still operating under a paper-based system with case files stashed in cabinet drawers, which made her unable to keep up with all the paperwork and documentation in the agency’s “archaic” system. The caseworker also claims she was, at the time, managing about 20 cases and even more individual children—a workload that significantly exceeds the Child Welfare League of America’s recommended caseload of between 12 and 15 children per worker.

As defendant Susan Osborne, DHHS Assistant Secretary for County Operations, correctly predicted roughly two years ago, the state of North Carolina’s foster care system would, indeed, invite “a massive class action lawsuit,” the case relays.

The lawsuit looks to represent all children for whom North Carolina DHHS has or will have legal responsibility and/or a special relationship in the context of the child protection system.

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