INDIANA, USA — In a scathing new lawsuit that illuminates a myriad of alleged systemic inadequacies within Indiana’s welfare system, representatives for nine children in foster care accuse high-ranking state officials and the Department of Child Services of failing to protect abused and neglected children in Indiana.
The lawsuit, brought Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana accused the state’s highest ranking official, Governor Eric Holcomb, of violating the rights of abused and neglected children by failing to address persistent, ongoing issues within Indiana’s welfare system. Issues within DCS that contributed to the further trauma of children, the class action suit contends, were well known among local and federal officials for years.
The suit similarly leveraged accusations against Department of Child Services director Eric Miller and the Department of Child Services of failing in their constitutional duty to protect children in the care of the state.
“The very system that was designed to protect foster children often compounds their trauma and causes lifelong harm,” the complaint stated. “By failing to provide the children in its custody with reasonable care and safety, Indiana violates those children’s rights under the U.S. Constitution and federal law.”
Included in the complaint is a searing resignation letter addressed to Holcomb from former Department of Child Services director Mary Beth Bonaventura, sent upon her resignation in December 2017.
She cautioned that then-DCS chief of staff Eric Miller, who joined Indiana’s state government in 2007 as a budget analyst for Gov. Mitch Daniels’ budget office, was “the greatest threat to this agency and child welfare.”
Bonaventura explained in the letter that she had been effectively stripped of her power to run DCS for 11 months, as Miller enacted a series of budget cuts that prevented her from addressing issues within the department.
The former director, who was at her position for five years, accused Holcomb of entrenching someone she labeled a “campaign asset” within a critical leadership role within the organization at the expense of better equipped professionals.
“Staff from your office chose a chief of staff with no child welfare experience who had been ‘an asset during the campaign,'” she wrote. Bonaventura laid out in plain terms her belief that Miller was “bent on slashing our budget in ways that ensure children will die.”
By May 2023, Holcomb had promoted Miller to the position of DCS director, according to the department's website.
DCS is in violation of the American Disabilities Act, the complaint alleges, by putting children in foster care in overly restrictive settings and adding additional trauma, the Child Welfare Act of 1980 and the Fourteenth Amendment by not protecting their right to maltreatment of risk or harm.
Outlined within the suit are heart rendering allegations of severe trauma and abuse endured by the children of all ages, often for years while under the care of DCS.
In one case, two siblings from Allen County were removed in February 2015 because, the complaint claimed, their mother physically abused her two eldest children.
In 2017, DCS allegedly placed the siblings back in their mother’s care, and in 2018 placed the two older siblings with their mother. In May 2018 the CHINS, or child in needs of services case, was closed with reunification.
But by September 2018, the children were removed again following allegations of physical abuse and neglect from the children’s mother.
The children disclosed to DCS that their mother had not fed them for several days as punishment.
In June 2019, the children were declared CHINS a second time and removed from the home. After removal, DCS allegedly enrolled all of the children in different schools than the ones they attended prior to removal.
The children were placed in different homes, with the exception of two siblings named in the lawsuit against DCS and Holcomb, who were placed together in the first two foster homes before eventually being separated.
One of the siblings’ placement was changed 10 times, and they both suffered years of sexual abuse that led to significant deteriorations in their mental health.
Despite previous claims of sexual abuse, both siblings were placed on trial home visits with their mother in the summer of 2021.
In March 2023, DCS reportedly received a report the mother was physically abusing one of the siblings.
The lawsuit claims the siblings suffered, and continue to suffer, emotional and psychological harm because of DCS’ “deliberate indifference to their legal rights.”
“Defendants may have prevented years of additional trauma that [the plaintiffs] have suffered, and continue to suffer, while in DCS custody. Without relief, [they] will remain at significant risk of harm from placement instability, lack of timely and appropriate services and delayed permanency,” the complaint read.
In another case, the suit alleged, a teen who was in DCS custody for around eight years after being raped and molested by her stepfather was not protected from another man who would go on to sexually abuse her.
In September 2015, DCS placed the teen with her grandmother, who was reportedly not a licensed foster parent, after the rape and sexual assault.
“DCS knew the placement was unsafe - DCS had denied the grandmother a foster license due to safety concerns,” the lawsuit alleged.
DCS reportedly knew the grandmother was selling pain medication to friends for money to buy gas and food, and that the grandmother was overmedicating, according to the lawsuit.
The teen was then sexually abused by a neighbor and, despite recorded indications by DCS that her grandmother likely knew of the ongoing abuse and was accepting food and other goods from this neighbor, DCS allegedly did not take steps to intervene to protect the teen.
“Although DCS suspected that the neighbor was sexually abusing 12-year-old [redacted], they did not remove [redacted] or [redacted] from the home. Instead, they implemented a safety plan prohibiting contact between [redacted] and the neighbor. Soon thereafter, the grandmother sent [redacted] to dinner with the neighbor unsupervised, in violation of the safety plan,” the suit alleged.
On Aug. 9, 2019, DCS reportedly removed the teen from the grandmother’s home and placed her in a licensed foster home.
DCS reportedly relayed suspicions about the neighbor to the police. On Sept. 4, 2019 police arrested the neighbor on charges of felony child molestation and child solicitation. The neighbor subsequently pled guilty and is currently incarcerated for these crimes, according to the lawsuit.
In the six months following the teen’s sexual abuse — from August 2019 to February 2020 — they allegedly received no therapy or psychological evaluation.
In February 2020, DCS reportedly connected the teen with a therapist, but, according to DCS records, DCS knew that more intensive therapy was required to address the teen’s severe trauma.
DCS was accused of facilitating supervised visitation between the teen and the grandmother even after the teen reportedly informed DCS that the grandmother, at the very least, knew about the ongoing sexual abuse, or, at worst, trafficked her for money and goods—even though DCS knew that returning to the teen to the place where she was sexually assaulted, and possibly trafficked, would trigger additional psychological harm, according to the lawsuit.
Another case outlines how DCS moved a boy to 22 foster homes, each lasting less than a year. The suit contends these constant changes led to further trauma after the murder of his stepmother and his father’ drug-related arrest.
The suit calls for lower caseloads, more appropriate management of cases, and more accountability. It mirrors a lawsuit filed in 2019, that accused the department of allowing high worker turnover and said the state did not adequately respond to child abuse.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed that lawsuit last year.
DCS and Holcomb’s office declined to comment on the litigation.
