On May 19, 2025, a class action on behalf of 13 Tennessee foster children was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee against the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, alleging significant systemic failures, summarized in a preliminary statement, the first 3 paragraphs of the complaint included below.
Experienced Tennessee guardians ad litem appear on behalf of the children, and prestigious Tennessee and national law firms represent the plaintiffs. A National nonprofit children’s advocacy group, A Better Childhood, appears to be the primary organizer of the action. The class is not yet certified. To read the complaint and sign up for news on developments, see https://www.abetterchildhood.org/tennessee
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
1. Tennessee’s foster care system is failing the children it is intended to protect.
Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Services (“DCS”) warehouses children in spaces which lack the basic necessities of life, including adequate food, bedding, soap, and potable water. Intended as temporary placements, DCS leaves children in these situations for months on end. Once placed in ‘long-term’ placements, children fare no better. DCS contracts with facilities which possess well-known track records of physical, mental, and sexual abuse. Children are placed in foster homes that have not been properly vetted, do not receive necessary information about the children, and do not receive the services necessary to care for them. Foster care is intended to be temporary, until children can either be reunited with their families or placed in another permanent home; however, children in Tennessee linger in foster care and are moved from place to place without the opportunity for a stable childhood.
2. The caseworkers required to support and protect foster children are overworked and undertrained. Due to crushing caseloads, DCS caseworkers are unable to reliably perform the basic duties necessary to oversee the well-being of the foster children assigned to their care. As concluded by a state audit in 2022, “[t]he safety, permanency, and well-being of Tennessee’s most vulnerable children is in jeopardy.”
3. DCS’s dereliction of care is no mere oversight or mistake. It has been previously sued in federal court for violating the rights of foster children. As a result of the suit, DCS improved many aspects of the foster care system, until the court ended its jurisdiction over DCS’s performance metrics in 2017. However, eight years later, the state of Tennessee’s child welfare system is just as bad, if not worse, than the crisis which engendered the previous lawsuit.
A Better Childhood’s advocacy goals for Tennessee from their website: www.Abetterchildhood.org
ADVOCACY GOALS
Keira M. v. Quin requests that the court prohibit DCS from subjecting the children in the general class and the ADA subclass to practices that violate their rights. The case seeks an order directing the state and DCFS to, among other things:
- Provide all children who enter foster care placement with an adequate and individualized written case plan within 60 days;
- Ensure all children who enter foster care placement receive necessary medical and therapy services;
- Ensure that children are only placed in homes that can meet their needs;
- Develop a process to properly match children with appropriate and safe foster homes, and prioritize keeping sibling groups together;
- Improve recruitment and retainment practices of appropriately trained caseworkers;
- Lower caseloads of individual workers to professional standards;
- Ensure that children with disabilities are provided with the services they need in their community.
Every Tennessee child welfare lawyer and juvenile judge I know who offers an opinion on the function of Tennessee’s child welfare system describes it as “worse than ever,” often using terms like “free fall,” “imploding,” and “systemic child abuse.” Caseworkers and DCS lawyers, too, often openly acknowledge the systemic chaos. Many foster parents are dismayed by the impact on the children they love.
In many forums, including an op ed posted on this blog and in Tennessee newspapers in January 2023, https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/01/03/public-outcry-needed-to-fix-tennessee-department-of-children-services/69774889007/ , I’ve called for recognition of the severity of the problem and DCS’s adoption of proven management practices and standards used in states whose systems work better, but the steep decline has only continued. My legal career began in 1987, and the Tennessee Child Welfare has never been worse. While I regret that a lawsuit is necessary, it is. I wish the Plaintiffs every success.
