Jackson Free Press

On Nov. 8, Olivia Y., John A. and Mississippi's other 3,500 children in foster care got one step closer to receiving the care they deserve. In April, weeks before going to court, Gov. Haley Barbour and Attorney General Jim Hood conceded that the children's constitutional rights had been violated, and agreed to settle a 2004 class-action suit brought on behalf of the children under the care of the Mississippi Department of Human Services Division of Family and Children's Services. In the intervening three years, Mississippi undertook its own investigation to determine the best course of action.

"We had to defend the suit for a long period of time just to get to the point where our experts were comfortable in saying, 'You need to do these things,'" Hood said. Although reports of serious problems in the agency date back to at least 1992, Hood was not aware of problems prior to the 2004 suit.

"When I saw this case, I said, 'I'm going to take this bull by the horns, because we're going to lose this case. So, we might as well figure out what we have to do to fix it rather than try to fight it and spending lots of money on lawyers,'" Hood said. "So that's what we've tried to do. I wanted to make sure we had the best experts—not somebody who was just going to defend us."

As part of the April agreement, Mississippi had six months to come up with a five-year plan of action to correct the deficiencies of the state's foster-care system. Working cooperatively with Children's Rights out of New York, the attorney general's office, the office of the governor, DHS and numerous attorneys representing the children submitted their plan for preliminary court approval last Thursday.

The 62-page agreement (2.2 MB) lists specific milestones in reform planning and implementation, standards, outcome measures, accreditation, monitoring and dispute resolution, with the bulk of the milestones having to do with raising the standards of care. Among the specific targets deemed most important by the plaintiffs are:

- Providing foster children with required medical and mental health screenings, assessments and care;

- Providing foster children with at least two in-person caseworker visits per month to monitor their safety and well-being;

- Licensing all foster family homes, including kinship care homes;

- Increasing foster-care reimbursement rates to reflect the actual costs of caring for foster children;

- Limiting caseloads to 14 cases per worker;

- Appointing an independent court monitor to ensure the timely implementation of reforms.

One of the major challenges for Mississippi will be to begin the ambitious plan with an agency currently depleted of adequate resources.

"You have to understand that this is an agency that's been gutted over the years," said Eric Thompson of Children's Rights, lead attorney for the plaintiffs. "What the plan calls for is a complete overhaul and rebuilding of the agency over a five year period. … We're starting off with just a depleted agency."

Thompson is cautiously optimistic about the future. "Everybody agrees that the situation was abysmal, which is why I think we all agreed to work together to come up with a remedial order," he said. "We're very pleased with this order. It's a realistic and robust plan for change at the agency. … Obviously, the hard work begins now."

Mississippi is not the only state that Children's Rights has sued. But the state's foster-care system is a reflection of the poor condition of the state's children in general. The Annie E. Casey Foun-dation consistently ranks Mississippi No. 50 overall in child well-being measures, including low birth weight, poverty and school drop-out rate.

"This is clearly one of the worst systems we've encountered in the whole country, so we've got a long way to go," Thompson said. "But I think this is a wonderful blueprint to fix the system."

By achieving the measures outlined in the plan, Mississippi has an opportunity to become the model for other states struggling with the same kinds of problems. By including an independent monitoring agency in the plan, there is built-in scrutiny to keep everything on target.

"The National Accreditation Group is independent," Hood said. "They'll tell us what we're doing right and tell us what else we have to do. I'm comfortable that we have in place a system that other states can copy once we reach our ac-creditation."

The public is invited to comment on the plan until Dec. 18, and a hearing is scheduled for Jan. 4, 2008."

Additional background here.

Previous Comments

ID

68180

Comment

I would get really excited...but we are truly five years away from this happening. I dream of the day DHS limits worker's caseloads to 14. DREAM OF IT!!! :)

Author

Lori G

Date

2007-11-08T16:14:19-06:00

ID

68181

Comment

I'm glad that the problems are being corrected. It would be nice if it didn't take five years to fix, but I can understand why it would take time since the whole system has to be overhauled.

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2007-11-09T09:46:09-06:00