http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071214/news01/71214031/1118/rss
Judge: Names of abused foster children to be disclosed
December 14, 2007
A federal magistrate judge on Friday ordered the state Department of Human Services to disclose the names of 2,893 foster children who were subjects of an abuse or neglect allegation while they were in state custody to a children’s advocacy group suing the state.
At a hearing Friday in Detroit, Magistrate Judge Donald Scheer also ordered the DHS to preserve the 2006 and 2007 e-mails of 33 DHS officials pending an agreement between the state and the advocacy group Children’s Rights on how to narrow the search to e-mails relevant to the state’s operation of its foster care system.
New York-based Children’s Rights filed a class-action lawsuit against Michigan in August 2006 on behalf of nearly 19,000 children in its foster care system, citing neglect and abuse of children while under state supervision.
Sara Bartosz, a Children’s Rights lawyer, cited the cases of several foster children who had died in state care since the lawsuit was filed, including 2-year-old Isaac Lethbridge, 2-year-old Allison Newman and 3-year-old James Bradley, Jr., all of whom died of mistreatment in state-licensed foster homes in Wayne County.
Bartosz said the state DHS computerized child welfare information systems were “a record-keeping abomination,” in part because the state is unable to say exactly what caseloads are for workers in foster care, adoption and licensing.
Scheer agreed with Special Assistant Attorney General B. Jay Yelton that some of the requests for information made by Children’s Rights were overly broad.
But, Scheer said the information on caseloads should be made available to Children’s Rights, as well as a statistically significant sample of the 2,893 foster children from 14 of Michigan’s 83 counties so that their case files could be reviewed to look for weaknesses in the child protection system. How many of the 2,893 children were found by CPS to have been abused or neglected is unclear. Bartosz the information needs to be retrieved and evaluated quickly in order to meet the June 3, 2008, date set for trial before U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Edmunds.
“Every day of delay is another day our clients have to live with this system,” Bartosz said.
Children’s Rights is not asking for compensation to themselves or foster children, but wants the state to improve the foster care system to higher standards.
Yelton said his law firm -- Miller, Canfield, Paddock, and Stone -- already has worked 11,000 hours on the lawsuit. At a conservative estimate of $100 an hour, that’s $1.1 million spent by Michigan so far to defend the lawsuit.
DHS employees have spent 4,000 hours in depositions and document retrieval/copying since the suit began, Yelton said.