Children, already traumatized by something in their home life, are spending years in North Carolina's foster care system after intervention from their local Department of Social Services. Records show some of those children are even shuffled between nearly two dozen homes.

Now a new federal lawsuit wants the courts to step in to force North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees county departments, to fix what it alleges is a broken system.

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Among the allegations in the lawsuit:

  • The state isn't properly overseeing county agencies, including making timely decisions on returning children to their parents or keeping them in the foster system
    • The state and counties are failing to enforce caseload standards so social workers aren't trying to oversee so many children
      • The state isn't providing adequate and timely mental health services for children, which the suit claims eventually costs the state more money because the children will need more specialized, expensive therapy as they get older.
        •  North Carolina puts children in institutions at twice the national average.

          WRAL Investigates asked about those specific allegations.

          The state said it wouldn't comment on the actual lawsuit, but provided details on several new programs it says address some of the lawsuit's concerns. Those include:

          • Implementing the regional support model created under Rylan's Law (S.L. 2017-41) for all 100 counties social service agencies. NCDHHS will deploy continuous quality improvement and technical assistance in safety, permanence and using the agency data to drive effective services that protect children, promote our value of health and well-being for all North Carolina. 
            • Filling newly developed Regional Director positions. The state said, "Our county partners are already benefiting from the wealth of knowledge our regional directors bring to these critical positions." 
              • $80 million from the state budget to strengthen specialized behavioral health treatment options in local communities and increase residential and inpatient settings for children to divert them from emergency rooms and local DSS offices. These include treatment programs to safely stabilize children who are experiencing a behavioral health crisis with emergency department diversion, mobile outreach response crisis teams, specialty treatment programs for children with complex behavioral health needs and intensive supports in the community. 
                • A new Medicaid Children and Families Specialty Plan that will support children, youth and families served by the child welfare system in receiving seamless, integrated and coordinated health. 

                  >> We're still in a crisis situation': Wake County foster kids still sleeping on floors of social services building

                  • Funding for the development and implementation of a trauma-informed, standardized assessment to address the trauma experienced by children and youth served by the child welfare system. 
                    • A statewide foster family awareness campaign. The number of licensed foster homes in the state increased from 5,825 in December 2023 to 6,081 in June 2024. 
                      • NCDHHS launched a new Kinship program, providing financial supports to unlicensed kinship providers.  As of June 2024, there were more than 1,600 unlicensed kinship families eligible to receive financial support, with nearly $600K going to families in that month alone. More than 2,500 children are with their families as a result of this work. 
                        • Improved training for workers: the redesigned Child Welfare Pre-Service Training curriculum will provide new workers opportunities to practice knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors grounded in realistic on-the-job experiences.  

                          The agency also provided a statement which included, "NCDHHS takes seriously its responsibility to ensure the health and well-being of children and families in North Carolina and shares a vision that every child can grow up healthy in a safe, nurturing family and community. We are committed to improving services that are needed for child welfare-involved families."   

                          Despite those words, those inside the system are skeptical.

                          "These children have been through absolute hell," Daria Barazandeh told WRAL Investigates. "Some children are spending five, six, seven, eight years in foster care often moving home to home to home. It’s not okay because in the end we end up with really damaged people."

                          She's a former licensed foster parent who's now raising a brother and sister she adopted out of the system. She says the road to reuniting children with their families or finding a new one is not always easy in North Carolina. 

                          "Depending on what social worker you get you can have an amazing experience, you can have a so-so experience, or you can have a devastating traumatic experience," she explained.

                          Barazandeh is now representing two young girls from Johnston County in a federal lawsuit which claims the state is failing foster children.

                          The young girls were cycled through nine different foster homes over a four-year period after being removed from their parents' custody.

                          Johnston County DSS then separated the girls and sent the older sister to a residential treatment facility, but she spent the day at DSS headquarters. The lawsuit says state law requires school-aged children in the system to be registered in school.

                          When left alone without an adult in the room, that child, who was 7 at the time, said she was sexually assaulted by a teenage boy at the Johnston County Social Service's office.

                          >> Interim director addresses alleged sex crime involving 7-year-old inside Johnston County DSS building

                          "She should have been in school, but she certainly shouldn’t have been alone in a room with a teenage boy," Barazandeh says.

                          "We’ve been looking into North Carolina for several years," Marcia Lowry with a A Better Childhood told WRAL Investigates. She's one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit.

                          David Baloche is the other attorney. He says North Carolina is falling short, "The fundamentals don’t change, and North Carolina is not meeting the fundamentals needs."

                          They say the lawsuit was the last resort after years of state and federal reports critical of the system -- even state leadership's own admission about social worker shortages and unmanageable caseloads.

                          Lowry says the firm filed similar lawsuits against Oklahoma and New Jersey in the past. She says both made major changes to their systems in response to those lawsuits. Those states are now among the best in the country, she said.

                          North Carolina is among a handful of states where the state simply oversees county-run child protective service programs. Baloche thinks that's a problem, especially when things go wrong. There is "a lot of finger-pointing between the states and counties, meanwhile the children are suffering," he says.  

                          Lowry says the fix is about more than money, saying, "This system really needs a fundamental rethinking in order for it to really serve the kids it’s supposed to protect."

                          The lawsuit isn't seeking any money or damages, only court orders to improve the lives of foster children in our state.

                          From someone who's experienced it first hand, Barazandeh hopes the lawsuit has the intended effect. She said, "I know what we’re doing doesn’t work. These children are what matters."