Court Asked to End California’s Denial of Services to Foster Children

Update: On March 14, 2006, the federal district court in Los Angeles ordered the state of California to provide mental health services that will enable tens of thousands of foster children to avoid institutional care. Read more.

On Monday, October 31, 2005, lawyers for 85,000 children in California’s foster care system asked the federal district court in Los Angeles to require state officials to provide the mental health services that at least two thirds of the children need to avoid institutionalization or juvenile detention --services the state’s Medi-Cal program for the poor and disabled is obligated to cover under federal Medicaid law.

The class action known as Katie A. v. Bonta was filed in July 2002. It challenges California’s longstanding practice of confining children who are in the state’s foster care system or at risk of removal from their families and who have mental health needs in hospitals and large group homes instead of providing services that would enable them to stay in their own homes and communities.

“We seek services that are essential to keep these kids with their families, with relatives or with foster families in their communities,” said Robert Newman, an attorney at the Western Center on Law & Poverty, lead counsel in the case.

"Without appropriate services, children with mental disabilities bounce between foster home placements and group homes,” said Ira Burnim, legal director of the Washington DC-based Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. “When their worsening mental condition renders them ‘unplaceable,’ they are abandoned to languish in institutions or fall into the juvenile justice system."

In 2003, Los Angeles County settled its portion of the lawsuit, agreeing to close the notorious MacLaren Children’s Center and develop appropriate services in the community. However, an expert panel found in August 2005 that the county had not yet even developed a plan to provide community services to the 50,000 children in its foster care system--the nation’s largest. In an effort to refocus the county’s efforts, lawyers for the children recently invoked the settlement’s dispute-resolution process. At the hearing, Judge A. Howard Matz ordered both sides to exchange proposals regarding possible appointment of a special master to oversee county implementation of the settlement.

In the overall suit against the state, Judge Matz was asked to give the health and social services agencies 30 days to develop a plan and another 30 days to actually begin providing the two most critical services statewide: family-based “wraparound” and therapeutic foster care (TFC). Experts contend that these two services “can turn around a child’s negative trajectory and produce virtual miracles,” according to papers filed with the court. “Each day that passes marks another day lost,” the request points out, for children “whose conditions steadily worsen without access to wraparound and TFC.”

Some California counties do provide the requested services to some children. "We know that given the right tools, even children taken from the cruelest of circumstances have a remarkable resilience and ability to adapt," said Melinda Bird, managing attorney of Protection & Advocacy, Inc. (PAI). "Providing those tools is not only the right course, it is the most efficient course, relieving human suffering, but also strengthening our society and using scarce resources wisely."

A consortium of state and national public interest groups represents the children, including PAI, the Bazelon Center, the Western Center on Law & Poverty, the National Center for Youth Law and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, along with the law firm of Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe, LLP

Contacts:
Kimberly Lewis, 213-487-7211 x 28, klewis@wclp.org
Tracy Schroth, 510-835-8098 x 3013
Lee Carty, 202-467-5730 x 121, leec@bazelon.org