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BY E-mail
Senator Jon Ossoff Senator Marsha Blackburn
Chairman Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Human Rights Subcommittee on Human Rights
October 31, 2023
Dear Senator Ossoff and Senator Blackburn,
We submit this letter in response to hearing testimony taken by the Subcommittee in
Washington, D.C. on October 25 and in Atlanta on October 30. Although DFCS appreciates the
Subcommittee’s interest in the care of foster children in the United States generally and Georgia in
particular, it is necessary that any investigative effort be fair, complete, and fact-based. To that end,
we must note the following with respect to the testimony:
• Several witnesses decried the necessity of housing children in hotels or DFCS offices. As the
Subcommittee is aware, DFCS has worked hard to address this problem, which arose from
a combination of provider shortages and denials from the State’s managed-care insurance
company. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the current Commissioner, DFCS now appeals
almost every insurance denial, and often pays outright for residential treatment while it
appeals the coverage denials, spending tens of millions of state dollars in “stop-gap”
healthcare. DFCS has had zero children staying in a hotel or office for several nights in recent
weeks. Last night, there was one child staying in a hotel, and we continue our efforts to
identify the right placement to meet his needs following his release from detention.
• One witness asserted that the number of children in foster care is approximately 11,000 and
rising. This statement is untrue. In fact, the number of foster children in Georgia was 10,464
in August 2023, down from a high of 14,202 in May 2018. The numbers have held steady
since their low of 10,432 in January 2022. This information was available and could have
been provided if the Subcommittee had ever asked for it.
• The Chairman of the Subcommittee held a press event last week suggesting that DFCS is
somehow responsible for an extraordinary number of missing children in Georgia.
Unfortunately, the Subcommittee never shared with us any of the information in its request
to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) or the information it
obtained, so we have been denied the opportunity to understand or respond to this analysis.
It is not clear whether the numbers the Chairman shared with the press account for children
who were recovered or children who aged out and refused to sign back into foster care (even
though they were located). What we do know is that a recent report by the Inspector General
for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that Georgia’s rate of foster
1
children reported missing is lower than its neighboring states of Tennessee, Alabama, and
South Carolina, and is less than half the rate of a number of other states—including New York,
Ohio, Maryland, Nebraska, Delaware and Kansas.1 To further bolster our practices, DFCS
will advocate for changes in state law in the upcoming legislative session to allow more
information-sharing with NCMEC—a fact we shared with your investigators earlier this
month.
DFCS takes seriously the issue of missing or runaway children and has a 14-page policy
memo providing detailed instructions to DFCS case workers on how to handle reported
missing children. DFCS also has a designated Missing Children’s Unit, and it works closely
with NCMEC, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Marshals, and local law
enforcement to help locate and recover other missing/runaway/abducted youth. DFCS
participates in an annual targeted recovery operation with the U.S. Marshals, called Operation
Not Forgotten, which focuses on recovering youth who have been deemed as “critical
runaways” or “critical missing.” DFCS is a member of Georgia’s Child Abduction Response
Team (C.A.R.T), which is a multi-agency initiative on 24-hour standby to be mobilized
whenever an Amber Alert/Levi’s Call is initiated. As the above-mentioned HHS IG report
demonstrated, DFCS is doing better on this front than many of its neighbors and other states
of similar populations.
• With respect to Ms. Aldridge’s testimony, DFCS acknowledges and in no way diminishes the
tragedy of Brooklynn’s death. As the Georgia Court of Appeals noted, however, in affirming
dismissal of Ms. Aldridge’s claims against the state: “While the circumstances of this case are
distressing, there is no dispute that Brooklynn was already having unsupervised visitation at
Lott’s residence before DFCS intervened, that Brooklynn’s death occurred weeks after
Appellant was released from jail, and that the incident happened after Appellant had agreed
to joint custody with Lott.” Aldridge v. Ga. Dept. of Hum. Servs., No. A21A1527 (Slip. Op.) at
9 n.5. Brooklynn was first placed in the physical and legal custody of Ronald Lott, Jr. on
January 23, 2018, by order of a Georgia superior court, and was not in DFCS custody at any
time, including the time of her death.
• In a recent meeting with juvenile judges, at their invitation, Commissioner Broce discussed
the lack of appropriate dispositional options, therapeutic interventions, step-down care, and
safe placements for young adults with serious mental and behavioral health challenges. At
this meeting, the participants also talked through recent legislation, opportunities to propose
more changes to state law, and ways to better collaborate. Some judges in attendance spoke
about the extreme difficulty balancing the child’s treatment needs, the family’s safety
concerns, and overall safety for the community. Often, solutions are tough to find. The
discussion included how additional time and resources might be necessary to best serve the
family, especially through enhanced coordination between state agencies. Yesterday’s
testimony on this point was lacking critically important context and accuracy. Commissioner
Broce did not encourage judges to violate state law, and it has never been DFCS policy to
punish a child with complex needs through detention. She and the participating judges all
shared ideas on how to tackle these challenges in a more united front, and the Commissioner
asked participants to be involved in legislative efforts to further improve Georgia’s child
1See Grimm, National Snapshot of State Agency Approaches to Reporting And Locating Children Missing From Foster Care 9, 32-33,
HHS Office of Inspector General (May 2022), available at https://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region7/72006095.pdf
2
welfare system. To DFCS’s knowledge, yesterday’s witnesses never raised any concerns about
the content of this meeting with the Commissioner or with the legislature, despite
opportunities to do so. Ultimately, the courts and DFCS are in this fight together, and must
stay focused on productive efforts to improve Georgia’s child welfare system.
The misstatements, omissions, and failure of the Subcommittee to request relevant
information or responses from the Department in advance of its publicized hearings and press
conferences leave the unfortunate impression that the goals of this investigation are political. That
impression is heightened by the fact that—despite the repeated claim that this is a “bipartisan
investigation”—the investigation into policies and practices of the Georgia foster care system has been
run exclusively by majority staff. In more than 35 hours of witness interviews with DFCS personnel,
or in the back-and-forth document requests that yielded nearly 10,000 pages of documents, the
Chairman’s investigators never once asked what kind of help or assistance the Department could use
from the federal government—and that need is considerable. DFCS remains committed to serving
the interests of the state’s most vulnerable population and finding workable solutions to the difficulties
inherent in working with foster children—with or without the Subcommittee’s help.
Respectfully submitted,
Patrick Strawbridge
Elliot S. Berke CONSOVOY MCCARTHY PLLC
BERKE FARAH LLP Ten Post Office Square
701 8th St. NW, Suite 620 8th Floor South PMB $706
Washington DC 20001 Boston, MA 02109
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[email protected] [email protected]
Rachael C. Tucker
Frank H. Chang
CONSOVOY MCCARTHY PLLC
1600 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 700
Arlington, VA 22209
[email protected]
[email protected]
