The founder of an organization that has installed boxes where mothers can leave unwanted infants is undeterred by a warning from Indiana that they are illegal and intends to make sure more mothers have protected access to them.
Indiana child welfare officials have warned an organization that installed two baby boxes at firehouses where mothers can drop off unwanted newborns anonymously to remove them, saying they question their safety and whether women who use them could face child abandonment charges.
The Indiana Department of Child Services for Crawford County should not have been granted the opportunity to interview two children, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled, because the order doing so violates their mother’s right to raise her family without undue interference by the state.
The 7th Circuit affirmed that Indiana was immune from a Federal Labor Standards Act lawsuit brought by two Department of Child Services Employees. The court said the state did not give consent for the suit, and thus had 11th Amendment immunity under the U.S. Constitution.
A lawsuit filed Thursday claims the Indiana Department of Child Services violated federal law when it proposed to slash assistance for three profoundly disabled children after their grandparents who served as foster parents planned to adopt them.
A jury has awarded $31.3 million in an "arbitrary and capricious" case against parents in their child's death.
The Indiana Department of Child Services is seeing a higher percentage of its family case managers leave the agency, its director told the DCS Oversight Committee.
The family of a 14-year-old Pulaski County girl who died as a result of prescription error has been awarded $31.3 million in a judgment against state agents who wrongly removed the couple’s children from their home and prosecuted the parents for their daughter’s death.
The number of children in Indiana in foster care rose to 13,134 in June, up from 10,550 a year earlier, according to state records. The shortage of foster families is putting pressure on the pool of people who are licensed to foster and making it more difficult for caseworkers to find local placements.
Governor Mike Pence Thursday announced the authorization of 113 additional Department of Child Services caseworkers to meet the demand caused by increased cases across the state. DCS will present its annual report to the State Budget Committee Friday.
The Indiana Supreme Court is weighing an emotionally charged case in which a man lost custody of his daughter after spurning child-welfare officials’ suggestions that he leave his mentally ill wife based on their fears that she might harm the girl.
The court record is replete with evidence supporting a juvenile court’s decision that a teenage girl would be better off if communication and visits with her mother were terminated, the Indiana Court of Appeals held Wednesday. The girl, in foster care, often had detrimental visits with her mother.
Two children were properly adjudicated in need of services, the Indiana Court of Appeals concluded in affirming a trial court.
Indiana Senate Democratic Leader Tim Lanane said Monday that Gov. Mike Pence must add 77 new caseworkers at the Department of Child Services to comply with state law.
Leaders of Indiana's Department of Child Services say it isn't meeting state-mandated caseload standards but aren't asking for money to hire more child welfare workers.
A state agency has rejected the appeals of two former Indiana child-welfare workers fired following the death of a paralyzed young woman.
Two Indiana Department of Child Services investigators say in a lawsuit that they've had to work extensive overtime without receiving required overtime pay.
Families who sued the Department of Child Services will receive $15.1 million in state foster child adoption subsidies withheld from 2009 to 2014, DCS announced Thursday.
Indiana has hired more case workers to keep track of its most vulnerable residents, but complaints about overwork continue to surface as the state battles turnover and questions the accuracy of data on caseloads.
The Department of Child Services will fund state subsidies for children adopted from foster care for the fiscal year that began July 1. The announcement comes after a lawsuit claimed the state reneged on promises to provide the assistance to about 1,400 eligible families since 2009.