U.S. District Judge lifts federal rules on child welfare agency

INDIANAPOLIS – A judge on Wednesday lifted federal rules imposed 15 years ago on Indiana's child welfare agency after hearing that the state had improved the handling of Marion County's child neglect and abuse cases.\nU.S. District Judge John Tinder dismissed the order after Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, said the state had made progress meeting the terms of the 1992 consent decree, including boosting the number of child welfare caseworkers.\n"Obviously the system is not perfect, but it's clear that the state is working to correct all of the problems that gave rise to this case," Falk said.\nClifton Cislak, a deputy state attorney general, told the court that the state agency was on course to fulfill all of the decree's requirements of reducing caseloads and improving training standards.\nFalk said the ACLU of Indiana filed a lawsuit in 1989 that led to the decree because the state's "crushing caseloads and inadequate standards" had left children injured or dead in Marion County – the state's most populous county.\nAbout a quarter of the child welfare cases involving allegations of child neglect and abuse that the Indiana Department of Child Services handles each year are in Marion County, which includes Indianapolis.\nSusan Tielking, a spokeswoman for the state agency, said about 60,000 allegations involving abuse or neglect of children are made each year in Indiana, and about a third of those cases are substantiated.\nCurrently, about 2,300 children in Marion County are involved in the child welfare system, she said.\nTielking said that over the past two years, the agency had hired 400 additional child welfare caseworkers and is expected to have hired an additional 400 caseworkers by next July. \nThose additions will boost to about 1,600 the number of state caseworkers, she said.