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Bradley W. Parks/OPBA conversation on the Senate floor on Monday pivoted from being about a measure requiring the state to provide luggage to kids in foster care rather than trash bags into a larger bipartisan discussion about why the agency charged with kids in its care has struggled for so long. -
Kristyna Wentz-Graff/OPBA legislative hearing earlier this year highlighted that a child welfare watchdog doesn't have a ton of independence.
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The wide-ranging bill would create exceptions to send children out-of-state for care and change definitions around restraints and seclusions. Proponents believe it will help more kids get care. Some advocates are worried it will cause more harm. -
From a historic election to record wildfires to drug recriminalization, 2024 was a big year for state government and political news in Oregon. -
When Oregon’s sweeping child welfare class action lawsuit was finally settled this fall, the judge presiding over the case lamented how “frankly over-lawyered beyond belief” the case had been. -
Three Oregonians talked in a court hearing about the neglect and abuse they endured as children in the state’s foster care system. -
Family members and the child’s attorney say the 17-year-old boy spent much of his life in the foster care system. -
Three schools across Oregon will receive funding in the upcoming school year to run a pilot program helping kids placed in foster care graduate from high school. -
The settlement stipulates Disability Rights Oregon and the state will agree upon a “neutral,” an expert to oversee the foster care system and work with the individual to improve the child-welfare system, primarily by reducing the rate of mistreatment and improving the quality of placements. -
In 2019, a national advocacy group filed a class-action lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Human Services, alleging the state mistreats children in its foster care system and has failed to fix glaring problems. Five years and millions of dollars later, the next trial has been delayed as the two sides near a settlement agreement. -
Some programs helping foster kids and families in crisis could lose all funding as lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom address budget shortfall. -
The agency has subpoenaed nine years of state Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin’s correspondence with constituents, journalists and even Paris Hilton. -
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 plaintiffs have accepted the offer, which is the agency’s largest award in Oregon history to settle a foster care lawsuit.
