SALEM, Ore. — Gov. Kate Brown issued an executive order Thursday establishing an oversight board for Oregon’s foster care system, which has drawn heavy criticism and is the subject of a federal lawsuit alleging abuse and neglect of children in state care.
The governor is establishing a Child Welfare Oversight Board, a panel tasked with developing solutions to challenges within the foster care system.
She said she will issue directives based on the Board’s recommendations, and a crisis management team will ensure those changes are implemented.
She compared the crisis management team to a “SWAT team,” saying it will act as her “eyes and ears” within the Department of Human Services, which oversees the state’s child welfare system. One member of her staff will be embedded within the agency to make sure the governor’s directives are carried out “as efficiently as possible.”
“I think I’m taking unusual steps here because the challenging situations that we’re seeing within the child welfare system,” she told reporters Thursday.
In a statement, DHS said it welcomed the additional support of the governor and is already taking its own steps to reassess the way it delivers child care.
The move comes as DHS is facing a federal lawsuit over alleged mismanagement of its 7,500 foster children, particularly minorities and those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Lawyers say caseworkers are overburdened and that, out of a lack of proper placement options, children are sent to homeless shelters, refurbished jail cells, or out-of-state institutions. Brown said the executive order is not a direct response to the lawsuit, and that the plan has been in the works for months.
Marcia Lowry, who is the executive director of A Better Childhood, the national nonprofit behind the lawsuit, said she hopes the lawsuit will compel a federal court to force an overhaul of DHS. She called the governor’s approach “not adequate.”
“It’s too little, too late,” she said. “If her programs work out then good for her, but I don’t think the children in this state are going to be protected without a court order.”
Brown’s advisory committees will make recommendations to address understaffing and a lack of placement options for foster youth. They will also advise Brown on the state’s reliance on sending kids to out-of-state facilities.
The state has more than doubled the number of kids it sends out of state in recent years. Approximately 84 kids are currently in out-of-state facilities, compared to the 33 children sent to these institutions in 2017.
