Oklahoma child welfare reform campaign to proceed as class action

06 May 2009 / Posted by cr

Abused and neglected children across the state of Oklahoma won a major victory yesterday as a federal judge in Tulsa ruled that the lawsuit Children’s Rights filed in February 2008, seeking the comprehensive reform of the extremely dangerous Oklahoma child welfare system, may proceed as a class action on behalf of the more than 10,000 kids who depend on it for protection and care.

Joined in court by members of our distinguished co-counsel team, and before a courtroom whose benches were lined with child advocates, members of the press, parents, and at least one former foster care youth, Children’s Rights Executive Director Marcia Robinson Lowry presented the case for certifying all of the children involved in the state child welfare system as a class.

More than 10,000 children throughout the state, she said, are “dependent on a system that cannot provide what the Constitution requires” to keep them free from harm during their time in Oklahoma’s custody — and the only way to bring about the systemwide reform that they all need is to allow the case to move forward as a class action.

To illustrate the point, she presented the stories of the nine children named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. As she spoke, television screens around the courtroom lit up with slides listing the number of times the children were bounced from one unstable foster home to another — sometimes suffering severe abuse and neglect while supposedly under the state’s protection.

The figures were stark and startling. Eight of the nine plaintiffs had been abused or neglected in state foster care. Among the nine of them, they had been moved a total of 110 times — and assigned a total of 330 different primary and secondary caseworkers.

“What these children have in common is that they have had so many different workers, it’s as if they’ve had no one to care for them at all,” Lowry said. “These children are being harmed.”

Furthermore, she said, the state’s rate of abuse and neglect among children in state custody is nearly four times the federal standard. Between 2004 and 2006, there were more than 1,700 confirmed incidents of abuse or neglect in foster care. More than 6,000 children in Oklahoma have been bounced around to at least three different foster homes — and nearly 2,000 have been through six or more.

The judge’s questions — for both Children’s Rights and Oklahoma’s attorneys — were tough, and the hearing went on for about two and a half hours before the judge announced a recess and said he would rule from the bench later in the afternoon.

When the court reconvened, he read his lengthy decision aloud — concluding at last that the legal requirements for class certification had been satisfied, and the case could proceed on behalf of all children dependent on the Oklahoma child welfare system.

“It’s a tremendous victory for abused and neglected children across the state,” Lowry said. “Thousands of children continue to suffer daily in the custody of an agency that simply cannot provide the care and protection to which they are entitled under the law, and now the federal court has authorized us to fight for reform on behalf of every single one of them.”