ATLANTA — A juvenile judge alleged this week that the director of the state Division of Family and Children Services asked Georgia courts to consider temporarily detaining children with special needs while the state tried to find placement for them, a move which, according to the judge, would violate the law. .
The allegations were made during a U.S. Senate Human Rights subcommittee hearing in Atlanta, chaired by Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga. The subcommittee is examining alleged abuse and neglect in the state’s foster care system. Ossoff and Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee announced the investigation in February, which was prompted in part by an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in late 2022.
“As judges we don’t lock up kids, especially kids with special needs, because we can’t find a place for them,” Carolyn Altman, a juvenile court judge in Paulding County, said during her testimony.
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These children have complex mental and behavioral health needs, and some of them have criminal records, making it very difficult for the state to place them in foster care. The judge said this is the same population of children the state has had to place in hotels or even office spaces.
The Department of Human Services, which oversees DFCS, did not respond to requests for comment.
Altman alleged that the comments were made by DHS Commissioner Candice Broce, who is also DFCS director, at a meeting in August with 30 other judges and DFCS leaders. Altman says the law states that children should only be detained «in the most limited circumstances» and that a child «shall not be detained for lack of a more suitable facility.»
Altman also alleged that one of his colleagues mentioned that the law specifically prohibits detaining a child for lack of placement, and the DHS attorney indicated that the law could be changed.
“(These comments) were not heard in passing, it was in a room of thirty-something judges,” Altman said.
Altman said he understood the request to extend a child’s detention when there is no legal basis for him to remain detained. These children, who have very high needs, could end up in hotels or DFCS offices, he said.
“DFCS has an incredibly difficult job, finding accommodation for children (with high needs) is incredibly difficult,” he said. «The answer is to create more locations to address the problem.»
Nhan-Ai Simms, a juvenile court judge in Gwinnett County, testified that she was also at that meeting and also alleged that those comments were made.
“Frankly, I was heartbroken, I think that if our child welfare system… has gotten to the point where we want to extend a child’s detention time just because we can’t find a place for them, then something is wrong, and we don’t It is working,” he said.
Broce has made it a key priority to end the practice of housing children in hotels and DFCS offices. These children are among the highest risk children, for whom it is difficult to find a shelter that will accept them. The AJC reported in September that DHS managed to reduce the number of children staying in hotels and offices to zero by one. evening. Earlier this year, it was not unusual for up to 70 children staying in a hotel on the same night.
Broce has previously attributed the decline to several factors, including legislation aimed at reducing the number of children entering foster care and temporary hotel placements. Additionally, Broce said a key factor has been working with providers who can find foster placement for these children. Often, some of the most difficult placements involve children who have a developmental disability, an intellectual disability, or prior involvement in the criminal system.
At the hearing, three judges described a system that is in crisis. Staff are overwhelmed, underpaid and suffer from inadequate training and burnout. There are also not enough providers who can care for these children.
Simms, the Gwinnett County Juvenile Court judge, said what she has seen is a culture of “child protection by the numbers.”
“Cases were classified to improve statistics and then closed prematurely in a misleading triumph. It is widely known that DFCS has been under immense pressure to address what has been a series of public relations crises. What I have seen is that pressure that leads to negligence or deliberate avoidance of the most complex and heartbreaking cases,” he said.
To date, the subcommittee has reportedly interviewed more than 100 people and reviewed thousands of pages of records, including Georgia Division of Family and Children Services’ (DFCS) own internal case reviews. The investigation is still ongoing and it is unclear how long it could last.
© 2023 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
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