Foster Care: Children can’t afford more shameful delays
Trending
Last week, a federal judge denied a request by state officials to pause a class action lawsuit that challenges conditions in West Virginia's foster care system. Good. U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin is correct not to allow the state to continue stalling before it faces this case.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey and the state Department of Human Services had wanted time to petition the U.S. Supreme Court on the matter, and sought a stay in the case brought on behalf of children in the state foster care system all the way back in 2019.
"This case began seven years ago and has been mired with delay," Goodwin wrote. "And while Defendants are certainly entitled to seek further review of important constitutional questions, they cannot continue to stall this litigation."
At its start, the lawsuit involved 12 children in the state's foster care system and alleged that foster children here are often housed either in hotels, shelters, institutions or out of state and are subject to abuse and neglect, during the tenure of former Gov. Jim Justice and the former Department of Health and Human Resources, which has since been split into three separate departments.
It is important to note that split has NOT yielded the improvements to the system these kids deserve.
"The allegations of constitutional violations, institutional failure, and harm to children in State custody are serious, in some cases extreme, and another delay in these proceedings risks further abuses before this court has had an opportunity to consider the claims presented," Goodwin wrote in denying the state's attempts.
In a state filled with politicians who grabbed their points by claiming they cared deeply about babies, children and families, the shame is even deeper when we are confronted with case after case in which children who have been failed by so many adults are then failed by the state's own system.
"The Court's decision today sends a clear message to the Defendants that there will be no more delay while the children of West Virginia continue to suffer at the hands of the State," said Richard Walters, partner with Shaffer and Shaffer. "Judge Goodwin has also put the Defendants on notice that when the State takes a child into its custody that it has an affirmative duty to protect that child and 'keep him reasonably safe from serious harm.'"
Surely Morrisey and the Department of Human Services are eager to prove reform has been made and that they understand the incredible sense of urgency in enacting even more improvements.
That being the case, again, Goodwin is correct to disallow any further attempts to delay the proceedings. For the sake of thousands upon thousands of Mountain State children who are in OUR care, let's get this case moving; and do better, for them.