Oregon’s child welfare agency has been in and out of court since 2019, defending against a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of every child in foster care in the state. The suit was filed by Disability Rights Oregon and the national advocacy group A Better Childhood.

Marcia Robinson Lowry is the lead attorney in the class action lawsuit and the director of A Better Childhood. On Monday, she announced that her organization was rejecting a settlement offer from Oregon’s Department of Human Services. The case is now expected to go to trial on May 13.

Child advocacy groups have brought similar class actions in other states including in Tennessee, where a settlement led to reforms that improved outcomes for children and youth in foster care. Oregon’s Department of Human Services told us they cannot provide comment on this ongoing litigation. Robinson Lowry recently spoke with “Think Out Loud” to talk about the lawsuit and what’s at stake.

The following excerpts have been edited for clarity and brevity:

Why the class action lawsuit was filed against the state

“The more we looked at data, the more we heard heartbreaking children’s stories, the more convinced we were that we needed to organize a lawsuit in this state. In Oregon, the maltreatment rate for children in the foster care system is almost twice the national average. The average length of time that children spend in the foster care system in Oregon is 21 months as compared to the average in the country nationally, which is about 17 [months]. The placement stability rate — the number of times a kid moves from one place to another — is 5.3, compared to the national average, which is only 4.1.

And also very significantly, children are not supposed to stay in the system too long. But when children are returned home by the state of Oregon, they are much more likely to reenter the foster care system because the state has not done a good job of deciding whether it’s now safe for children to return home. And so the reentry rate into foster care in Oregon is 14.4%, as compared to a national average of 8.3%.

So when you look both at the national data and see how other systems are doing, and you see how poorly Oregon compares to that, it was clear that a class action lawsuit was necessary.”

Why the state’s settlement offer was rejected

“The settlement offer that we received was totally unsatisfactory. It will not protect the children that we represent and will not give the state the opportunity to be responsible for making things better.

We’ve said this from the beginning, we think that the state gets better by doing better for the kids it serves. And the way you measure whether the state is doing better for the kids that it serves is by having better outcomes: by getting children back home or into another permanent living situation as soon as possible, by not having children harmed or abused while they’re in state custody, and by not having kids move from one place to another. That’s just devastating for a kid.”

The kinds of reforms Lowry is seeking for foster care children and youth

“The way you do it is not by just changing your policies, but it’s by changing your practice. It’s by having enough case workers so that caseworkers can spend time on individual children’s individual cases. It’s by having enough places for children to go when they need to be housed outside their homes. It’s by having the special services. The kids need therapeutic foster homes of specially supported services for kids. And looking for placements for children of all of those kinds of things and not making decisions just based on a policy but making decisions about whether to return a kid home or not based on the individual circumstances of the individual child and the family. We all certainly believe that children are best raised by families, not by institutions.”

Improving the system is not just about money, Lowry says

“Look at Oklahoma, which is also doing an incredibly strong job in providing additional placements for children. And Oklahoma provides additional services for kids in both foster homes and in kinship homes. But the services that the kids need are what the state is providing. And Oklahoma is not a wealthy state at all. It’s not a matter of money. It’s a matter of making a commitment to doing better and really looking and seeing what you’re doing.

Oregon, for example, does not get children assessed in a timely manner. You can’t provide services for a child if you don’t understand what the child needs. That’s not something we say. It’s in fact a matter of federal law and the state is supposed to do it, but they’re not.”

Marcia Robinson Lowry spoke to “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller. Press the play arrow above to listen to the conversation.