By Carolina Journal Staff
The head of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services is urging a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit targeting mental health services for foster children. DHHS Secretary Kody Kinsley filed paperwork Monday supporting dismissal.
Plaintiffs who filed a class-action suit in December complain about the state’s psychiatric residential treatment facilities. Critics compare the facilities to solitary prison confinement. They want the state to shift its focus away from the centers to provide more support services in the children’s home communities.
Kinsley, the named defendant in the suit, took over DHHS’ top job in January 2022.
“Within a month of his appointment, Secretary Kinsley reorganized the Department to create a new Division of Child and Family Well-Being, bringing together programs and staff operating across multiple department divisions to support the physical, behavioral and social needs of children,” according to a memorandum filed Monday in U.S. District Court. “In March 2022, the Child Welfare and Family Well-Being Transformation Team released a ‘Coordinated Action Plan for Better Outcomes’ focused on what it recognized as an ‘urgent crisis of the growing number of children with complex behavioral health needs who come into the care of child welfare services.’”
Kinsley cited “improving services for children with behavioral health needs in the foster care system” as one of his top priorities during a confirmation hearing in June 2022.
“It is a long-term, herculean effort, in which DHHS plays an important, but not solitary, role,” according to Kinsley’s lawyers.
“Before any of these efforts could bear fruit – indeed, before Secretary Kinsley had been in his position for even a year – Plaintiffs brought suit,” the memo continued. “Plaintiffs claim that DHHS has a ‘policy or practice’ of discriminating against foster children with mental health impairments; of ‘prioritizing or permitting’ placement of foster youth with severe behavioral and mental health needs in psychiatric residential treatment facilities; of ‘permitting shortages’ of community-based placements and services; and of failing to make ‘reasonable modifications’ to those policies and practices that would enable more foster children with behavioral health needs to be served in the community.”
“In other words, the Complaint alleges that the DHHS is failing to address the issues on which Secretary Kinsley, DHHS, and other stakeholders across the State have been working tirelessly over the last 14 months,” the secretary’s lawyers wrote.
Kinsley argued that the plaintiffs’ allegations under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act fail “to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” He also argued that state courts already have ruled on whether it was necessary to place the named plaintiffs in the psychiatric treatment facilities.
“Finally, the only relief sought in the Complaint is systemic change: an increase in placement options and treatment services that will likely take years to fully fund and develop,” according to the memorandum. “The individual Named Plaintiffs have not asked for individual relief, and cannot demonstrate that the injury they have purportedly suffered would likely be redressed were the Court to grant that systemic relief. Accordingly, under fundamental precepts of federal court jurisdiction, they do not have standing.”
Kinsley’s lawyers also question the legal standing of two groups acting as plaintiffs: Disability Rights North Carolina and the N.C. State Conference of NAACP.
Plaintiffs will have an opportunity to respond to Kinsley’s motion before a federal court takes action.
DHHS is a huge tax payer funded money hole.
Here is the Table of Contents for the DSS budget submission. What would you recommend cutting?
OVERVIEW
I. PROGRAMS OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
A. DIVISION OF SOCIAL SERVICES
1. Work First Family Assistance 10
2. Food and Nutrition Benefits 11
3. Title IV-B Adoption Assistance Payments 12
4. Title IV-B Adoption Vendor Payments 13
5. State Adoption Assistance Payments 14
6. State Adoption Vendor Payments 15
7. Title IV-E Adoption Assistance Payments 16
8. IV-E Non-Recurring Adoption Expenses Reimbursement 17
9. Title IV-E Foster Care – Standard Board Rate 18
10. Title IV-E Foster Care Maximization 20
11. Title IV-E Guardianship 22
12. Guardianship State 23
13. Title IV-E Extended Foster Care (Foster Care 18-21) 24
14. State Extended Foster Care (Foster Care 18 to 21) 25
15. State Foster Care Benefits Program 27
16. Low Income Energy Assistance Payments 29
17. Crisis Intervention Program 30
18. Duke Energy Progress – Energy Neighbor Fund 31
19. Haywood Electric Membership Corporation – Helping Each Member Cope 32
20. Wake Electric Membership Corporation – Wake Electric Round Up Program 33
21. Piedmont Natural Gas – Share the Warmth Program 34
22. Refugee Assistance Payments 35
B. DIVISION OF AGING AND ADULT SERVICES
23. State/County Special Assistance for Adults 36
C. DIVISION OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND EARLY EDUCATION
24. Subsidized Child Care Program – Direct Services 37
II. PUBLIC ASSISTANCE ADMINISTRATION
A. DIVISION OF SOCIAL SERVICES
25. Low Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP) and Crisis Intervention Program (CIP) Administration 39
26. Food and Nutrition Services Program Administration 40
27. Food and Nutrition Incentive Fraud Collections 41
28. Electronic Benefit Transfer E-Funds Cost 42
29. Food and Nutrition Services Electronic Benefit Transfer Call Center 43
30. Refugee Assistance Administration 44
31. The Work Number (Equifax/TALX) 45
B. DIVISION OF AGING AND ADULT SERVICES
32. State/County Special Assistance Administration 46
C. DIVISION OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND EARLY EDUCATION
33. Subsidized Child Care Program – Service Support 47
D. DIVISION OF HEALTH BENEFITS
34. Medicaid (Title XIX) Administration 49
III. SERVICES PROGRAMS
A. DIVISION OF SOCIAL SERVICES
35. SSBG Services – Federal 50
36. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Transferred to Soc Serv Block Grant 51
37. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (NC LINKS) 52
38. Child Protective Services IV-E 53
39. Child Protective Services – SSBG Expansion 54
40. State CPS Caseload Reduction 55
41. Child Protective Services State 56
42. Child Welfare In-State Home 57
43. Permanency Planning 58
44. Time-Limited Family Reunification Services 59
45. Foster Care/Adoptions – State 60
46. IV-E Administration Foster Care 50% Federal – 50% County 61
47. TANF Child Welfare Workers for Local DSS 62
48. IV-E Foster Care Parent Training 75% Federal – 25% County 63
49. IV-E Administration Adoption 50% Federal – 50% County 64
50. IV-E Adoption Parent Training 75% Federal – 25% County 65
51. Child Support Enforcement Services (IV-D) 66
52. Offset — IV-D Incentive 68
53. Food and Nutrition – Employment & Training 70
54. Work First County Block Grant 71
B. DIVISION OF AGING AND ADULT SERVICES
55. State In-Home Services Fund 74
56. Adult Day Care Federal & State 75
57. Adult Protective Services – SSBG 76
58. Adult Homes Specialist 77
Most everything on there!
I would recommend cutting DHHS. What part of my original post did you not get? Too much government is not a good thing.