Although many may be skeptical of parents whose children are removed from their care, statistics show that nearly 67% of Hoosier youths exit foster care and are successfully reunited with their moms and dads. Those stories of resilience inspired the Marion Superior Court Juvenile Division and the Marion County Public Defender Agency to celebrate National Reunification Month for the first time in Indiana.
Read More
When those in the legal community look back at 2019, they may turn their heads and look forward instead. While the year had bright spots, several sordid sagas dominated the headlines.
Read More
Children going into the state’s child welfare system end up more broken, attorneys suing the Department of Child Services say, because they are not being provided with therapy and treatment to help them heal. Rather, the lawyers contend, DCS is just finding beds to stick the kids in and forgetting about their other needs.
Read MoreIndianapolis parents who claim the Indiana Department of Child Services wrongly removed their children from the home over allegedly false accusations of sexual abuse have filed a federal lawsuit against the agency seeking $3 million in damages.
As the Indiana Supreme Court takes up the question of whether a man convicted of murder should get a new trial because of misconduct by an attorney who served as jury forewoman at his trial, that attorney also is suing the state over her firing related to her conduct in the case.
An Evansville man who was proven to be the father of a child adopted by foster parents, but whose paternity was never formally established by a court, lost his appeal Wednesday challenging the adoption.
The Indiana Court of Appeals has reversed a child in need of services finding after concluding that the child’s mother, while admitting to using marijuana, was not proven to have used it in the child’s presence or seriously endangered the child as a result.
A mother whose parental rights were terminated after she signed a form voluntarily relinquishing them may not have been properly advised, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday, reversing the termination and remanding the case to the trial court.
Indiana trial courts and the Department of Child Services continue to deprive parents of their due process rights after years of warnings, the Indiana Court of Appeals said Wednesday, reversing the termination of a mother’s parental rights when the termination hearing went on without her or her lawyer present. In doing so, appellate judges strongly restated that courts and DCS have a duty to ensure parents’ rights aren’t violated.
A lawsuit alleging harm and constitutional violations by the Department of Child Services has survived a motion for summary judgment after a federal judge found the children plaintiffs have sufficiently claimed the state failed to protect them.
A lawsuit filed by 10 Hoosier children who argued Indiana should be required to provide legal counsel to youngsters involved in children in need of services proceedings was dismissed Tuesday in federal court. Attorneys who filed the case, however, indicated the matter is far from over.
A father will have his parental rights restored after an Indiana Court of Appeals ruling that reiterated the Department of Child Services does not have the authority to set policy inconsistent with the law.
A father fighting child welfare investigations that resulted in his son’s removal from his custody has lost his appeals of multiple motions granted by the trial court that damaged his case.
The Indiana Court of Appeals on Thursday reversed the termination of a father’s parent-child relationship after concluding his due process rights had been violated. The Department of Child Services, the appellate court found, did not make reasonable efforts to reunify the father and child.
Lawyers for Indiana’s Department of Child Services are pushing to seal records in a federal class action lawsuit accusing the child welfare agency of inadequately protecting thousands of children in its care.
The Indiana Department of Child Services says child neglect and abuse deaths increased during fiscal year 2017. A report released Friday details 65 deaths that resulted directly from abuse or neglect.
Claiming outside advocates were relying on “an inflammatory and outdated account,” Indiana Department of Child Services director Terry Stigdon released a video statement Monday in response to the lawsuit filed last week charging the state agency with inflicting further harm on children entering the foster care system.
In response to the question of whether the Department of Child Services can file successive CHINS petitions based on evidence available at the time of the original petition — a practice that has drawn ire from the Indiana Court of Appeals — the Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that such a practice is barred. However, the specifics of the case the court addressed Thursday did not require reversal.
An 81-page lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Indiana Department of Child Services claims the agency is failing to protect children and further inflicting trauma by placing foster children in inappropriate, unstable or overly restrictive facilities and not providing the necessary medical and mental health care.
A mother’s efforts to get her life back on track and reunite with her daughter were recognized by the Indiana Court of Appeals on Friday, which reversed an order terminating the mother’s parent-child relationship for insufficient evidence.
A father will still get time behind bars for failing to pay at least a decade’s worth of child support, but questions as to how much he owes led to the reversal of his more than $66,000 restitution order on Friday.
An Indianapolis man has been acquitted in the 2017 starvation death of his 2-month-old daughter. A jury returned the verdict late Wednesday in the case against William Moss following two days of testimony in Marion County Criminal Court.
The Indiana Court of Appeals has affirmed a child in need of services adjudication after concluding the dismissal sanction for failure to timely conduct a CHINS factfinding hearing is not a mechanism to collaterally attack a CHINS adjudication.