article: This class action brought by children placed in Connecticut's Department of Children and Youth Services (DCYS) was filed on December 19, 1989, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. The plaintiffs were represented by the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union. They sought declaratory and injunctive relief against the state to redress deficiencies in the child welfare system, claiming that the state violated the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, and the First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The complaint alleged that the defendants failed to: <ul> <li>provide adequate protective services to abused, neglected, or at risk children; <li>provide adequate medical care, mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment, sexual abuse treatment to children in DCYS care; <li>ensure that all children in DCYS care receive appropriate and least restrictive placements; <li>ensure that all reports regarding these children are investigated and responded to promptly by caseworkers; <li>provide sufficient and trained staff; <li>provide adequate records and information systems; <li>make reasonable efforts to keep families together by providing threatened families with reasonable and appropriate services to prevent placement into out-of-home care; <li>provide minimally adequate and appropriate care to all of the children, placed by DCYS, into foster homes or similar settings; <li>move children into adoptive or other permanent homes when reunification is impossible; and <li>develop and implement appropriate case plans that will assure permanent placements for all children in their custody.</ul> On January 7, 1991, the parties reached a settlement agreement mandating broad scale reform. The Court entered a consent decree reflecting their agreement and requiring the defendants to: <ul><li>establish a training academy and statewide computerized data system; <li>appoint an advisory board; <li>design and implement a management structure that delineates reporting relationships; <li>establish a health management unit for children under the supervision, care or custody of the department; <li>increase staff by hiring qualified and experienced individuals; <li>establish comprehensive guidelines and regulations to facilitate the uniform intake and investigation of reports of suspected child abuse or neglect; <li>institute standards for treatment, case management, and family training, <li>implement objectives and goals for adoptions, <li>establish regional resource groups for consultations and evaluations; <li>develop procedures to complete Probate Court Ordered Studies within the timeframes specified by state law; and <li>establish a DCYS Monitoring Panel to determine, promulgate, or approve standards and procedures to fulfill the mandates of the Consent Decree, to implement reasonable timetables, and to establish mandatory funding amounts to ensure compliance.</ul> The Consent Decree could be modified, amended, or changed by the trial judge, but only upon the filing of an appropriate motion by a party or the DCYS Monitoring Panel. On December 19, 1996, the plaintiffs filed a motion for contempt. The defendants admitted to noncompliance and after extended negotiations the defendants agreed in October 2003 to: require the monitor to develop a definitive exit plan with specific outcomes; establish a Transition Task Force to assume all decisionmaking authority having substantial impact on the plaintiffs' safety and welfare; establish funds of $1 million for meeting emergency needs of class members; and to ensure that the governor would not replace the Commissioner during the term of this order without consulting the monitor first. Shortly thereafter, the monitor developed an exit plan detailing the necessary reforms and benchmarks that the defendants would have to meet. This plan was entered as a court order on December 23, 2003. It was modified three years later. Despite some improvements made by the defendants, the plaintiffs formally reported noncompliance again on May 5, 2008. Two months later, the plaintiffs withdrew their assertions of noncompliance pursuant to another stipulated agreement in which the defendant's agreed to comply with the foster-care recruitment and retention plans, administrative case reviews and treatment planning conferences plans, and health-care requirements. In December 2009, the plaintiffs moved for a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, and a permanent injunction to prevent the defendants from suspending new intakes to one of their programs, the Voluntary Services Program. The defendants responded by arguing that the children receiving treatment or assistance in that program were not members of the plaintiff class. A year later, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, stating that children in the Voluntary Services Program were indeed members of the class. On August 17, 2010, the court granted in part and denied in part the motion for preliminary injunction and motion for permanent injunction. The defendants filed a motion for reconsideration on August 31, 2010, but the court denied the motion four months later. 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 135238; 2010 WL 5376224. In the meantime, while that motion for injunctive relief was pending, on April 13, 2010, the defendants sought to vacate the Consent Decree and Exit Plan, claiming that the objectives of the Consent Decree and Exit Plan had been achieved and that factual and legal changes would make continued enforcement unfair. The court denied the defendant’s motion to vacate on September 22, 2010. The court also directed the parties to meet immediately with the court monitor to discuss new methods of evaluating the state's performance. 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 99455; 2010 WL 5590094. For the next seven years, the monitor periodically provided the court with revised exit plan quarterly reports. The most recent exit plan was submitted by the court monitor's office on May 1, 2017. The parties were then given an opportunity to respond to the recommended exit plan, and when both did, the court scheduled settlement talks with Magistrate Judge Holly B. Fitzsimmons for later that year. It's not clear if the parties agreed on a revised exit plan or if the court adopted one on its own, but on December 13, 2017, the Court entered a 2017 Revised Exit Plan and it appears that since then the case has continued by reference to compliance with that. That exit plan identified 14 relevant outcome measures. The plan also required the Court Monitor to conduct what it referred to as "Certification" reviews to ensure that defendants were in compliance with all of the outcome measures, and in sustained compliance with all of the outcome measures for at least two quarters prior to asserting compliance. The Court Monitor would then conduct a review of a statistically significant valid sample of cases to determined whether the defendants were in compliance. The parties and Court Monitor later created a "Pre-Certification" review process. This intended to obviate the need to implement the full certification review for certain outcome measures after sustained compliance had been achieved for all outcome measures. Under this process, if DCF achieved sustained compliance for at least two consecutive quarters, the Court Monitor could, in his discretion, conduct a pre-certification review. The purpose of this review was to identify and provide a prompt and timely opportunity to remedy any problem areas. In February of 2019, the Court Monitor released the Revised Exit Plan Status Report, covering the period from April 1, 2018, to September 30, 2018. It found that of the ten remaining outcome measures, there were five that had not been pre-certified. A year later, in February of 2020, the Court Monitor released another Exit Plan Status Report, covering the period from April 1, 2019 to September 30, 2019. The monitor found one more of the outstanding outcome measures, relating to the caseloads of DCF social workers, had been pre-certified, leaving four outcome measures awaiting pre-certification. As of October 7, 2020, the Court Monitor has continued to assess compliance under the 2017 Revised Exit Plan, and the litigation is ongoing, presumably until the outcome measures required by the exit plan are met.
summary: The plaintiffs, children placed in the custody, care, or supervision of the defendant Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Children and Youth Services, sought declaratory and injunctive relief, claiming that the state failed to redress deficiencies in the child welfare system. The case was filed in 1989 and the parties agreed upon and filed a Consent Decree in 1991. In 2010, the state sought to vacate the Consent Decree but the motion was denied by the court. As of October 2020, the parties are continuing to work with the Court Monitor to assess compliance according to the terms of the 2017 Revised Exit Plan.