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A3 THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2019 Foster children sue state over ineffective care Class-action suit alleges inadequate protection By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Oregon Capital Bureau Foster children have fi led a class-action lawsuit against the state alleging inadequate care. ‘THE SYSTEM IS SO OVER- WHELMED, UNDER-RESOURCED, AND INEFFECTIVE THAT OLDER CHILDREN AND CHILDREN WITH EVEN RELATIVELY MILD BE- HAVIOR PROBLEMS ARE OFTEN NOT PLACED BY DHS IN FAMILY HOMES WITH NECESSARY SUP- PORTS AND SERVICES.’ skills and resources nec- essary to survive on their own when they leave foster care. ” And the state , the law- suit claims, doesn’t support foster parents with enough training or money. The lawsuit points in par- ticular to how frequently Oregon foster children are moved from home to home, and sometimes to out of-state facilities. Moving frequently can compound the trauma that foster chil- dren already experience. “The system is so over- whelmed, under-resourced, and ineffective that older children and children with even relatively mild behav- ior problems are often not WANTED Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500 don’t go through what they went through,” Shank said. “They’re not getting any- thing out of this, other than change in the foster care system. And they still want to do it. I mean, that really speaks to how resilient the human spirit is — they still care about other people around them.” In his statement, Pak- seresht outlined steps being taken by the state already, including dealing with fos- ter children placed out of state. He said they are being assessed to ensure they “are getting the services and sup- ports they are eligible for and confi rm they are in the appropriate level of care, returning to Oregon those who can be served safely here.” The Oregon Capital Bureau is a collaboration between EO Media Group, Pamplin Media Group and Salem Reporter. Consult a PROFESSIONAL Q: Do all Doctors accept Medicare Supplement Plans? Steve Putman A: Not all doctors accept Medicare supplement Medicare Products (Medigap) plans. However, if a doctor accepts Medicare 503-440-1076 (your primary coverage), they Licensed in Oregon and Washington putmanagency@gmail.com will accept your Medigap plan, regardless of the type of Medigap plan you’re enrolled in. Q: How to update LEO FINZI Astoria’s Best.com programs installed on my computer? A safe way is to use Glary Utilities High quality (available at Glaryutilities.com) After installing Glary, look for printer paper only a red numeral at the bottom of the Mon-Fri 10-6, Sat 11-4 window. It indicates programs on your $3.99/ream 503-325-2300 computer for which there are updates. Click on the number and it will take you to a web page with download links (the green squares) to the official website to download your program updates. Click on the green squares, wait about 30 seconds, and your updates will begin downloading. We’re here to help. A: 10TH STREET ASTORIA TRANSIT CENTER SALEM — A new class-action lawsuit fi led Tuesday accuses the state of inadequately protecting fos- ter children. Ten foster children, rep- resenting the roughly 8,000 children in the state’s care, want a federal court to fi x long-standing issues at the state Department of Human Services. The children are repre- sented by Disability Rights Oregon, law fi rm Davis Wright Tremaine and A Bet- ter Childhood, a New York organization that advocates for kids in the child welfare system. They sued the state agency and its director, Fari- borz Pakseresht, the agen- cy’s director of children welfare, Marilyn Jones, and Gov. Kate Brown. “We take the care of our foster children seriously and work with urgency and dili- gence to achieve this goal,” Pakseresht said in a state- ment issued soon after the suit was fi led in U.S. Dis- trict Court in Eugene. “Over the past 18 months we’ve been building the founda- tion needed to balance staff workload, so they can spend more time with children and families and add sup- ports to serve children and families holistically in their communities.” The lawsuit alleges the state is violating foster kids’ civil rights, including fed- eral laws that safeguard the rights of children in state custody. The complaint chron- icles in detail the experi- ences of the foster children — including a 9-year-old girl who was sent to a res- idential treatment facility in Montana. The suit contends she was secluded, held and injected with medications to calm her down from tan- trums. The suit also tells of a transgender boy sent to a residential facility for girls and an infant boy who was mistakenly administered his older brother’s medication for a congenital heart defect, resulting in a hospital stay for the baby. The lawsuit alleges that the state is also failing to protect the rights of foster kids with disabilities, who are LGBTQ, or those 14 and older who are poised to age out of the system. The lawsuit alleges that the Department of Human Services doesn’t assess chil- dren properly and quickly enough to fi gure out what they need in terms of treat- ment and placement. There aren’t enough fos- ter homes, which means that children are put in places that may not be right for them, including hospitals, homeless shelters, and refur- bished juvenile detention facilities, the suit contends. A key issue that the law- suit points to is the agency’s shortage of child welfare workers compared to the number of children who are removed from homes. The caseworkers the agency does have are over- whelmed by high work- loads, get burned out and leave the agency at a rapid rate. About one-third of caseworkers, according to a 2018 state audit, have been on the job for 18 months or less. Despite efforts by the agency, high turnover continues, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit says LGBTQ children aren’t in safe, sta- ble homes that are accept- ing of their sexual orienta- tion or gender identity. Kids with emotional, intellectual, psychological and physical disabilities are deprived of proper treatment. And many kids aging out of foster care are “forced into institutions or homeless shelters,” or left out in the cold, with no planning for their transition to adulthood, and “without placed by DHS in family homes with necessary sup- ports and services,” the lawsuit states. “Instead, DHS places these chil- dren in inappropriate insti- tutions, ships them out of state where they are placed in costly and questionable for-profi t congregate pro- grams that do not address their needs, or largely aban- dons them so they wind up in homeless shelters or on the streets.” The state’s use of out- of-state facilities, at great expense and with little mon- itoring, has garnered atten- tion during this year’s legislative session. The Department of Human Ser- vices is now working on a plan to bring those children back to Oregon. Oregon removes children from their homes and puts them into foster care at a comparatively high rate . In 2017, Oregon ranked 20th among states when it came to the number of chil- dren placed in foster care per 1,000 children living in poverty, according to the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. Oregon has twice as many children in foster care as New Jersey, yet half the population of that state, said Chris Shank, an attorney for Disability Rights Oregon. Shank says Disabil- ity Rights Oregon sees the lawsuit as an “opportunity to transform” the foster care system. The foster children she has met are eager to help other kids like them, Shank said. “When you talk to them about being involved in a lawsuit, they want to be involved so that other kids Q: What are dental sealants, who should get them and how long do they last? JEFFREY M. LEINASSAR DMD, FAGD sealants are a clear A: Dental coating place in the deep grooves 503/325-0310 1414 MARINE DRIVE, ASTORIA www.smileastoria.com of teeth, protecting them from food and bacteria that can be hard to remove with brushing. 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