Public Interest Groups and National Law Firm File Suit
Against Nation's Largest Child Welfare System
Suit Seeks To Improve Mental Health Services
For Foster Children Throughout Los Angeles County
Los Angeles, CA – Today a broad coalition of public interest organizations,
including the Center for Law In the Public Interest, the ACLU Foundation
of Southern
California, the Western Center on Law and Poverty, the Youth
Law Center, Protection and Advocacy, Inc., the Bazelon Center for Mental
Health Law, and the national law firm of Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe,
filed a sweeping class action lawsuit against the Los Angeles County
Department
of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the County of Los Angeles, and
the State of California.
The suit seeks to ensure the delivery of medically
necessary mental health services for children currently in, or at risk
of being placed in, DCFS custody, and to put an end to the County's
abysmal
record of multiple failed foster placements and its excessive reliance
on restrictive, institutional placements for children with emotional
and
behavioral problems. Currently, close to 50,000 children are under
DCFS supervision, making Los Angeles County's child welfare system the
largest
in the nation.
It is estimated that between 60 and 85 percent of children in foster
care nationwide have significant mental health problems. In Los Angeles
County, many thousands of children in DCFS custody with emotional, behavioral,
and psychiatric impairments are not being provided with the community-based
mental health services to which they are entitled by law. Numerous studies,
as well as the experiences of other jurisdictions, have conclusively shown
that intensive, community-based mental health services can be successfully
and cost-effectively provided in the home or in a home-like setting, even
to children with the most severe emotional and behavioral problems. Indeed,
intensive, community-based mental health services are not only legally
required, but they are far less expensive than the congregate and institutional
placements upon which Los Angeles County has relied for too long.
"It is the system's failure to identify and address the mental health
problems of these children that is perhaps the principal obstacle to family
reunification or adoption," said Mark Rosenbaum, Legal Director of
the ACLU/SC. "This results in the county's shameful record of costly
and needless foster placements and hospital institutionalizations, that
leads to tens of thousands of children never having a single place to
call home, a single family to call their own. Los Angeles is a system
that leaves nearly every child behind."
Multiple foster placements are especially harmful to children because
they can lead to longstanding attachment and trust problems. The chance
of being emotionally, physically or sexually abused by other children
or caretakers increases each time a child is moved from one placement
to another. In addition, constant moving often disrupts therapy, schooling,
and other services.
"I can't remember how young I was when I entered foster care, but
I've spent most of my life in the county's custody," said Robert
Kaiffie, a former foster child. "When I would start to get used to
a foster home or group home, maybe even make friends, my social worker
would move me somewhere else. All this movement taught me to shut down,
to close myself off, to withdraw, to be angry and anxious. What child
wouldn't react that way?"
"We know that given the right tools, even children taken from the
cruelest of circumstances have a remarkable resilience and ability to
adapt," said Lew Hollman, Director of the Center for Law In The Public
Interest (CLIPI). "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."
The cost to taxpayers of failing to provide necessary mental health treatment
and services to children is well documented: inadequate care leads to
a worsening of symptoms, with costlier consequences requiring more expensive
responses. For example, during the fiscal year of 2001-02, stays at the
MacLaren Children's Center, which has become an institutional warehouse
for children with serious emotional and behavioral problems, were estimated
to cost a staggering $757 per day per child, or $276,287 per year -- far
more than the cost of intensive, community-based treatment. The cost in
lost opportunities to the children themselves -- most of whom will never
receive a high school diploma, many of whom will end up in the juvenile
and criminal justice systems, and some of whom will be institutionalized
for the rest of their lives -- cannot be calculated.
"Like other counties, Los Angeles continues to rely heavily on restrictive
congregate shelters, despite widespread agreement among children's health
experts that such shelters are harmful to children with the most severe
emotional and behavioral problems," said Ira Burnim, Legal Director
for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the nation's leading advocate
for people with mental illnesses and mental retardation. "Without
appropriate services, children with mental disabilities bounce between
foster home placements and group homes. When their worsening mental condition
renders them "unplaceable," they are abandoned to languish in
institutional settings."
Among other problems, the suit cites:
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failures to assess children's needs, including medical, mental health,
educational and family needs.
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unavailability of such medically necessary mental health services
as behavioral support, psychiatric or other clinical services , and
comprehensive case management services in a home-like setting.
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an over-reliance on restrictive, institutional placements, including
locked psychiatric hospitals and "emergency" shelters such
as MacLaren Children's Center.
multiple foster care placements that are harmful to children and disruptive
of family contact, educational continuity and medically necessary
mental health treatment.
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excessive and unwarranted reliance on the removal of children from
their families and their placement into foster care, as opposed to
providing medically necessary mental health services in the home,
including family preservation services where appropriate.
"Programs in other parts of the United States have successfully
returned even the most troubled children in foster care to their homes
or their communities," said Robert Newman of the Western Center on
Law and Poverty. "We should be able to do the same in Los Angeles
County."
"The suit seeks immediate relief for all children currently in or
in danger of being placed in DCFS custody," said Ron Peterson, chair
of Heller Ehrman's Los Angeles office Pro Bono Committee. "When the
Center for Law in the Public Interest asked Heller Ehrman to join in representing
children in the care of Los Angeles County who are being unlawfully denied
medically necessary services, attorneys from many of our offices volunteered
their services. This spirit continues Heller Ehrman's long-standing tradition
of representing those who need, but cannot afford, quality legal representation."
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The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law is the leading legal advocacy
organization representing people with mental illness and mental retardation.
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