A U.S. district judge recently ruled in favor of foster children bringing a class action lawsuit against the Arizona's Department of Child Safety. The federal lawsuit can proceed, with a trial expected next spring.
The lawsuit claims the Arizona foster care system failed to fix known problems in the system, exposing foster children to harm and violating their rights.
The complaint said the state did not provide the children needed access to healthcare, had a shortage of family foster homes and was slow investigating complaints.
The judge ordered all 17,000 children in DCS care now, as well as those in the future, will be part of the class-action lawsuit.
Staff attorney Anne Ronan is with the Arizona Center for Law in the Public interest, which brought the suit more than two years ago.
“Almost all of the systemic problems that we raised, in fact I would say all of the systemic problems we raised when we filed the lawsuit in 2015 still exist,” Ronan said.
The state argued many children in the original complaint have since been adopted, making the lawsuit moot.
