Oregon’s Department of Human Services has promised many improvements in the state’s foster care system over the next decade, including reducing the rate of mistreatment of children in care and increasing the quality of foster care placements. The promises are the result of an out-of-court settlement agreement reached in May after 5 years of legal wrangling in a class action lawsuit.

The first part of the agreement was for a so-called ‘neutral’ expert to oversee the implementation of these reforms. The judge selected Kevin Ryan, who was the choice of the plaintiffs, to be the neutral.

“Think Out Loud” spoke with Fariborz Pakseresht, director of Oregon’s Department of Human Services and Aprille Flint-Gerner, the director of Child Welfare at DHS.

The following excerpts have been edited for clarity and brevity:

On how they feel about the selection of Kevin Ryan as the neutral expert

Pakseresht: We are feeling great. We are excited about Kevin coming to Oregon and partnering with us to continue our reform efforts.

Flint-Gerner: He also oversaw the child welfare system in New Jersey, and he’s worked as an expert in similar child welfare cases in other states. And he’s a deep subject matter expert on national best practices.

On why the $18 million to fight the class action lawsuit over the last five years was money well-spent

Pakseresht: We had two main goals in mind before we could actually sign onto a settlement. One was to make sure that we could continue making improvements — which started even before the lawsuit was filed — and improve outcomes for children and families in collaboration with other system partners. And second, really be fiscally responsible around the money that we were spending defending this lawsuit.

From 2019 to 2024 — over the same five years that we were negotiating to get the right settlement — the state of Texas spent $58 million paying a monitor as a result of their engagement in a similar case. That’s about $12 million a year. Based on our settlement agreement, we are paying $250,000 a year.

And at the same time, the lawsuit today, when you look at the initial filing and what was included in that, is completely different than what we actually ended up with. Because during the past five years, the court made a number of different rulings that significantly narrowed the scope of that agreement.

What were those improvements that were are already underway?

Pakseresht: Our focus is trying to reduce the number of kids coming into foster care, keep children and families together.

Flint-Gerner: In the last five years, we’ve been working with our community, our system partners and the legislature to make important investments in children and families, including the launch of a statewide family preservation program, our statewide Continuous Quality Improvement program amongst many others. And just a couple of facts to throw out there: If our goal is to really safely reduce the number of children in foster care, which it is, we absolutely want to see communities keep their children safe, but they don’t necessarily have to do that while their Children are separated from them. Well, Oregon has seen a steady decline in the number of children in foster care down from almost 8000 in 2018 to just over 4500 in 2023. …

We saw a 74% increase in placement with what we call kith and kin: grandmas, aunties, uncles.

So we’re talking about building safety within communities rather than only focusing on separation to get to child safety. Obviously we’re still going to have a foster care system, but we would much rather serve kids in communities where they’re known where they’re loved, where we can build sustainable safety rather than having to traumatize children coming into foster care.

On what areas are in the most urgent need of improvement

Flint-Gerner: We talk about where we’re nationally recognized for our prevention and preservation work and how we’re trying to kind of shrink the front door of the child welfare system. But what happens if there are families that have basic needs for mental health or substance abuse treatment or they need housing? And those things can be attended to keep their children safe. And as our door gets shorter and smaller and we have less and less families coming through, the families that are coming through, their needs are really complex.

And we’re talking about the intersection of poverty and chronic neglect and a lack of resources in communities that is much harder to navigate. And to answer your question, I think really getting to quality practice with those families requires intention; it requires focus. We need to make sure that we’re serving the right families at the right time and doing it really, really well. So for me, I really want to continue to see transformation in our safety practice. Our core practice around building safety for children in foster care is really important.

What’s the plan for keeping kids in foster care safe?

Flint-Gerner: We launched a continuous quality improvement program a couple of years ago and we are already seeing improvements around child safety. And really my goal is to continue to grow that continuous quality improvement effort. So one example: We have a branch in the Portland metro area that focused on accurate and sufficient ongoing safety plans in 2023. As a part of our continuous quality improvement effort, we saw within nine months, the percentage of accurate and sufficient ongoing safety plans doubled.

We are seeing those kinds of returns across the state with this newly implemented continuous quality improvement program thanks to the investment of the legislature.

On increasing quality of available foster care homes, placements, and services, as agreed in the settlement

Pakseresht: Especially after COVID, we are seeing fewer people that are stepping out there. I think we need to do a better job within the organization to reach out and we also need to better support foster parents, resource parents. Perhaps we need to look at what we’re paying them. Is the payment sufficient to take care of the children in care?

And also, there’s always areas for improvement. Can we better connect with them? Can we better support them? Can the communication increase? And we also need to look across the country, because this is not just limited to Oregon. Again, as we talk with our colleagues in other states, they’re facing the very same thing, it’s difficult to recruit and retain qualified resource parents. But I would say that we can always do better, and it’s really not even directly related to the settlement.

Flint-Gerner: It’s such a great question because there are so many Oregonians out there who are fantastic foster parents and they have loving homes. They are great partners and caring for children, but the more complex the needs of a child, then the more support those people are going to need to care for them.

People ask me about placement capacity. And it’s not about the number of beds, right? That’s really about, do I feel confident that I can care for the child that’s sitting in front of me? And we’ve made quite a few investments in our resource families of late. We have this amazing support group that foster parents can participate in. And we’ve increased their access to training. And as Fariborz [Pakseresht] mentioned, we’ve increased their rates.

You can listen to the whole conversation with Fariborz Pakseresht, director of Oregon’s Department of Human Services and Aprille Flint-Gerner, the director of Child Welfare at DHS on “Think Out Loud” by pressing the play arrow above.