The Oregon Department of Human Services and child advocacy groups that filed a lawsuit over the state’s mismanagement of the foster care system can’t agree on who should oversee a historic settlement that requires the state to overhaul its child welfare system.
Both sides will appoint neutral experts, who will be selected by federal Judge Ann Aiken to guide efforts to settle the class action lawsuit for years to come. The settlement, which could last up to 12 years, requires the state to improve its foster care system, and the neutral experts will play a key role in setting standards and determining whether agencies are making enough progress.
They agreed the state needs to make improvements in areas such as the rates at which children leave and re-enter the foster care system, ideal living conditions for children, and adequate medical, dental and mental health care.
The settlement announced in May ended a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene in 2019 based on the experiences of 10 current or former foster children. Disability Rights Oregon and the national nonprofit A Better Childhood filed the lawsuit to bring systemic improvements to the foster care system, which cares for more than 4,600 children.
The lawsuit, which became a class action lawsuit in 2022, sought to reform a foster care system that has drawn criticism for shuffling children from home to home, using inadequate out-of-state facilities and putting children up in hotels amid a shortage of suitable housing.
Oregon Department of Homeland Security and Disability Rights Oregon Settle Long-running Foster Care Class Action Lawsuit
Terms of the settlement provide that if the two sides can’t agree on experts, they will submit their names to the court. Records show that the process has moved quickly since the settlement was signed.
In court documents filed Monday, Disability Rights Oregon and A Better Childhood named Kevin Ryan, who has served as a neutral expert in similar cases in Florida, Michigan, Oklahoma and Texas.
Ryan began his child welfare career in New Jersey in 2002, where he served as the state’s first child advocate, or watchdog on child welfare issues. As New Jersey’s commissioner of human services, Ryan worked to restructure the state’s system into one that is “now one of the best child welfare systems in the nation,” the lawsuit said.
He left public service in 2008 and now works solely as a neutral professional overseeing child welfare cases and settlement efforts.
Lawyers for the Oregon Department of Human Services recommended Julie Ferber, a 30-year veteran of child welfare who served as deputy commissioner of New York City’s Department of Child Welfare Services from 2015 to 2022, according to the department’s court filings, in a role that included reducing the number of children in foster care.
“Farber has dedicated his career to advancing systemic reforms that result in better outcomes for children and families,” the agency’s filing said.
Farber also has experience coordinating child welfare reforms in the Washington, D.C. child welfare system through court settlements, and served for five years as policy director for Children’s Rights, Inc., a group that litigates child welfare class actions nationwide.
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