Children’s Rights, an advocacy group based in New York has settled its class-action lawsuit with the state of Michigan over its for foster care system. The settlement took place just days before the case was scheduled for trial.
The settlement mandates "top-to-bottom reform and federal court oversight of Michigan's long-failing child welfare system." Edward Woods III, spokesman for Michigan Department for Human Services (DHS), said that these changes would cost about $50 million annually for the next four years. The money will be coming from state and federal funds and will be used to hire 700 new employees.
Under the settlement, the DHS is required to establish a Children’s Services Administration which will exclusively provide protection, treatment, and services to children in state custody and those reported for abuse or neglect. The agency is urged to work harder to children toward permanent homes, improve investigations of reported child abuse and neglect and reduce the occurrence of maltreatment in foster care placements.
Woods said that the motivation for all this has been the kids. The DHS as of the moment must recruit and retain an adequate group of potential foster and adoptive parents for the kids under their custody. The department is also required to provide adequate medical, mental health, and dental care to those kids. In order to ensure that these things will be followed, a monitor who will report to the federal court will oversee the progress.
The suit was filed by Children’s Rights in August 2006, accusing DHS of endangering the foster children and depriving them of adequate physical and mental health services. This was mainly due to the "depleted and overburdened" workforce of the DHS that moves children from home to home rather than finding permanent placements.