The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services faces a number of challenges that prevent it from adequately serving victims of child abuse and neglect, multiple people said during recent legislative hearings in Nashville.

Among those challenges are the high rate of turnover and low morale among underpaid caseworkers, inadequate facilities and too few places to send children, leading to some of them having to sleep on DCS office floors.

Data shows that if the state is unable to provide adequate education, mental health services and job prospects to those in foster care, they’re much more likely to end up in the criminal justice system.

Tim Irwin, a juvenile court judge in Knoxville, said DCS is “near collapse.”

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While there are many complex, longstanding issues with no easy solutions, the people who spoke at the hearings last week — including judges, government officials, lawmakers and advocates — said one problem is at the root of the others: funding.

“Throw money at it,” Irwin told the Joint Ad-Hoc Committee on Juvenile Justice Wednesday, Aug. 31. “I’m telling you right now, throw money at it. Tons of money at it.”

They said the state needs to hire more frontline children’s services caseworkers, and it needs to pay them more in order to keep them in such a high-stress job. They also said the state needs to replace the Wilder Youth Development Center in Fayette County, which Disability Rights Tennessee accused of abuse and endangerment in a scathing report earlier this year.

“Money for salaries and resources to attract those high-quality employees are going to be critical to the success that we have,” said Richard Kennedy, executive director of the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth. “More money is going to provide more services to more children.”

Christy Little, a judge in Jackson, said, “What it all boils down to is money.”

‘Have not because you ask not’

The committee has been meeting monthly and expects to produce a list of recommendations for lawmakers to consider in the upcoming legislative session, which begins in January.

The Tennessee Department of General Services is also expected to produce a report on an ideal site for new facilities at Wilder.

“There’s a great need for us to get this right,” state Sen. Page Walley (R-Bolivar) said in an interview.

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Walley helped create DCS while he was in the state House and served as commissioner in the administration of then-Gov. Donald Sundquist. He then ran similar agencies for the state of Alabama before returning to Tennessee.

He said the state needs to intervene on behalf of children facing abuse or neglect as early as possible in order to prevent compounding trauma. Another recommendation the committee might make, he said, is to improve the off-ramp for those exiting the foster system.

“It’s foundational to my belief that the earlier we can provide the support and direction to families, the better off these youth are going to be,” he said.

Walley didn’t say exactly what he thinks the salary range should be for DCS caseworkers or employees at Wilder, but he said it should be more in line with what correctional officers receive.

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Last winter, Gov. Bill Lee increased the starting pay for workers in prisons and jails by 37%, to $44,500. DCS caseworkers’ starting pay also rose last year, but not by nearly as much, and remains under $40,000.

Walley encouraged DCS and other agencies not to be shy when asking for funding.

“Sometimes you have not because you ask not,” he said.

State Rep. Andrew Farmer (R-Sevierville) expressed skepticism that workers deserve higher pay, saying people “don’t want to work” and just want “government handouts.” He also said the state is using some of the best practices suggested by advocates.

But, Farmer said, “If we need to put our money where our mouths are, we will.”

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Mounting challenges

It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that 20 years ago, children in foster care in Tennessee were not getting an education.

Most foster kids lived in group homes and were educated in the same facilities. Students of a wide range of ages, many of them with behavioral problems or learning disabilities, were in the same classes. Classes were disruptive and unproductive, and most fell far behind grade level.

A class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of a Memphis boy, and the federal consent decree that followed, fundamentally changed DCS.

By all accounts, the department made remarkable progress under the federal consent decree. More children are living with families, attending public schools, graduating from high school and playing sports, rather than being essentially warehoused, as they were before the lawsuit.

The consent decree loosened in 2017, as DCS made continued improvements, and ended in 2019.

Since then, DCS has faced mounting challenges.

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One of those was brought to light in an April report by Disability Rights Tennessee and the Youth Law Center, entitled “Designed to Fail,” about the Wilder Youth Development Center in Somerville.

The nonprofit organizations accused DCS of creating dangerous conditions of confinement at the facility, lack of mental health services such as group therapy, denial of education and abuse by staff.

“This lack of treatment of rehabilitative services means that youth don’t have the opportunity to better themselves and become productive members of society when they return to their community,” Jasmine Miller, an attorney at the Youth Law Center, told lawmakers.

Miller described Wilder as the “deep end” of the juvenile justice system, saying the teenagers there have fallen through systemic cracks and not received the services they deserved.

Some solutions could be implemented immediately, she said, such as ending solitary confinement and staff abuse. Other systemic changes would take longer. The law already requires much of what they recommend, but Miller said those laws haven’t been implemented.

“The issue is how to make what is written down real,” Miller said.

Walley said “there was a lot of accuracy” to the report, but that it was “incomplete” and a “snapshot in time.”

“There have been some substantial changes,” he said. “They didn’t cite much of the very positive things that have been going on at Wilder.”

State Rep. Torrey Harris, a Memphis Democrat, echoed that assessment in an interview a few months ago.

Walley said he talked to some of the teenagers at the facility during a recent visit.

“I think that we have not done what we could do to (help them) be successful citizens after they leave,” he said. “They’ve got aspirations.”