The Indiana Department of Child Services is responding to a class action lawsuit alleging the agency is failing the children in its care.
The lawsuit filed on behalf on nine children seeks policy changes at DCS. According to the complaint, some of those children have been shuffled between foster homes more than 15 times.
But DCS Director Terry Stigdon says the lawsuit is cherry-picking cases. In a video statement, she notes the average number of foster homes a child in DCS care lives in is two.
“Put frankly, DCS is simply not the agency it used to be," Stigdon says. "And continuing to rely on an outdated inflammatory account is misleading and harmful to children and their families.”
Stigdon’s statement outlines the progress she says the agency has made over the last year. And she says the lawsuit won’t “distract” DCS from its mission to continue improvement.