Tue
Jun 28 2022
08:31 am
TN children in foster care
By: bizgrrl

From WATE,

"According to the TN Department of Children’s Services 2020-2021 Annual Report, they provided residential childcare, including foster care, to 7,778 children."

According to "Dr. Walt Mauldin, Executive Director of Smoky Mountain Children’s Home in Sevierville", “right now there are 9,119 children and young people in state custody.”

Whether it is 7,000 to 9,000, how well is the State of Tennessee doing to take care of children in state custody? Children that are no longer able to live with their birth families.

"Smoky Mountain Children’s Home is a private faith-based foster care and adoption agency that has been in existence for over 100 years." “There are approximately a little over 100 [children] in our foster care program, [and] about 32 in our residential program.”

There are approximately 1.5 million children under the age of 18 in Tennessee. 9,000 of those children have no permanent home. 13.6% of people in Tennessee live in poverty. In Tennessee in 2019, there were nearly 90,000 pregnancies. Of those, nearly 6,000 were females aged 15-19. In 2019 there were just over 80,000 live births. Of those live births, 44% of the mothers were unmarried.

This should all be kept in mind when more births are required by the state. There will be more need and funding for healthcare, mental health care, low income support, and of course foster care.

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bizgrrl's picture

Department of Children's

Submitted by bizgrrl on Tue, 2022/06/28 - 8:51am.

Department of Children's Services (DCS) has a shortage of caseworkers and high turnover of caseworkers.

From a News Channel 5 - Nashville report, from March, 2022, "DCS has 2,765 budgeted caseworker positions. At the end of January, 586 of those positions were unfilled."

"DCS admitted 57 case managers had more than 50 cases at the end of January despite a law that says they should not average more than 20."

"There were 5,080 foster homes in 2020. It fell to 4,963 in 2021. By January of this year, it was down to 4,853 according to DCS."

"NewsChannel 5 Investigates obtained a video last summer of kids sleeping on the floor of a DCS office building because they had no other place to go."

bizgrrl's picture

Action News 5, Bluff City, on

Submitted by bizgrrl on Tue, 2022/06/28 - 8:55am.

Action News 5, Bluff City, on May 23, 2022, reports "In Knox County, there was about 650 children in foster care."

In Tennessee, "There was about 9,000 children in the system and about 4,000 foster homes as of Monday, according to Youth Villages."

bizgrrl's picture

Then, there is a "Tennessee

Submitted by bizgrrl on Wed, 2022/06/29 - 5:04am.

Reported on June 1, 2022, there is a "Tennessee law that authorizes child-placing agencies to deny services based on the agencies’ religious policies—even if the services are funded by state money. "
...
A young couple were denied a foster child placement because they were of the Jewish faith. "...Holston [United Methodist Home for Children] informed Elizabeth and Gabriel that it would not serve them because, as Jews, Elizabeth and Gabriel were not of Holston’s preferred (Christian) faith. "

Thus, in the State of Tennessee we have so many children that need foster care that they have to sleep in DCS offices, but we can turn away a good couple because of their faith.

bizgrrl's picture

From News Channel 5 -

Submitted by bizgrrl on Wed, 2022/06/29 - 5:12am.

From News Channel 5 - Nashville, reported again on the subject on June 20, 2022, "'Active discussions' are underway about a class action lawsuit against DCS [Department of Children Services]."

There was a similar lawsuit in 2000 that "led to a court takeover of the Department of Children's Services."
...
"Court supervision of Tennessee's foster care system did not end until 2019, nearly twenty years after the lawsuit was filed."

"They have just slipped right back into the old ways, and it is unnecessary, and it is wrong," Raybin said."

As mentioned previously, kids are sleeping in the DCS offices because they have no foster homes available. The court's "investigation found more than 40 kids who ran away from the DCS office building at 500 James Robertson Parkway in the last year. They were all eventually listed as a missing person in police reports."

What is it with the State of Tennessee that they cannot take care of the children with no family? But, they are forcing more women to have more unwanted children? Why don't these pro-life proponents stand up and start taking care of the children already living?

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