(CN) — U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff released findings from a federal investigation into Georgia’s child welfare system on Tuesday that detailed how systemic failures and mismanagement within the agency contributed to the deaths of children.
The 64-page report by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, chaired by Ossoff, details significant shortcomings — such as staffing shortages, mismanagement and insufficient training — in the state's Department of Human Services contributed to death and serious injuries among children it is responsible for.
“The most vulnerable children in our state and in our nation must be protected from physical abuse, from sexual abuse, and from human trafficking. We cannot and must not look away from these findings, though they are deeply distressing. We cannot accept the abuse, the trafficking, and the preventable death of children," Ossoff said in a statement.
Ossoff and the subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law launched the bipartisan inquiry in February 2023 as a case study to assess the nature and scope of human rights issues presented in state foster care systems.
The subcommittee convened four public hearings and conducted over 100 interviews to better understand the challenges that states face and the human rights violations children may suffer in foster care.
It was prompted by a 2022 report from Georgia’s Office of the Child Advocate, which oversees the state's Division of Family and Children Services, finding that caseworkers were not adequately responding to child abuse cases and that placement services for victims of human trafficking, sexual abuse, or physical abuse were often “inadequate” or “inappropriate.” The office described the situation as an “ongoing threat to the safety of child victims.”
It also produced to the subcommittee several child fatality reports illustrating mismanagement of cases where children died of abuse or neglect, including a mother who drowned her child just days after the department received a police report of a woman wandering outside with her naked 12-month-old, in an obvious state of delusion and distress.
Years of audits tracking the department's compliance with federal safety standards revealed that it consistently failed to assess and address safety threats to children, including failing to adequately investigate reports of physical abuse, according to the committee.
"The most recent DFCS audit, reviewing cases from spring 2023, found that DFCS failed to properly assess and address safety concerns in 84% of cases reviewed," the subcommittee wrote. "The subcommittee’s review of prior audits shows that DFCS has failed to meet federal safety standards for at least the last seven years and was fined by the federal government in 2019 for failing to improve its performance."
Nearly 2,000 children in the department's care were reported missing from 2018 to 2022, with at least 410 children likely sex trafficked, according to testimony before the subcommittee from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The center testified that children who go missing from child welfare placements face about a 1 in 5 chance of being sex trafficked and are also vulnerable to other life-threatening forms of child endangerment.
The committee also identified an issue using reports by juvenile court judges and former foster youth that said the department improperly prolonged children’s time in juvenile detention despite their eligibility for release.
Judges and attorneys representing foster children said in subcommittee interviews that the department fails to provide adequate healthcare to children in foster care, the subcommittee found.
It adds that the department claims its Medicaid provider, Amerigroup, frequently denies coverage for medically necessary services for foster children, making it difficult for it to ensure adequate care, and leaving it to cover the cost of medical services and appeal denials of coverage.
The administration of psychotropic medications is also not adequately monitored, according to annual reports from the department and testimony from Commissioner Candice Broce and former foster youth, which results in frequent overmedication of foster children.
The report also said that the department is “weakening independent oversight” of Georgia’s child welfare system, by taking over the selection of members oversight bodies, or “Citizen Review Panels,” that are tasked with reviewing its performance.
For the last 16 years these panels have been appointed by an independent entity — who during that time have been “sharply critical” of the department's performance, but now the department will appoint these panel members, according to the report.
"The subcommittee acknowledges the inherent difficulty of Georgia DFCS’ crucial mission and the many challenges faced by the agency, including chronic underfunding and a shortage of foster care placements. The subcommittee recognizes and honors the daily efforts of DFCS’ frontline workforce — the overwhelming majority of whom work hard in good faith to serve Georgia’s vulnerable children," it wrote in the report.
A spokesperson for the department sent an 11-page response to Ossoff’s report, taking issue with many of the findings and accusing Ossoff of "political gamesmanship."
The spokesperson said the subcommittee’s report omits the department's improvements, like addressing the issue of placing children in hotels.
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