Bradley Co. judge orders children in DCS custody to appear for court hearings, says agency failed to provide information

From Local 3 News: Bradley County General Sessions Court Judge Andrew Morgan will now require Tennessee children in custody of the Department of Children’s Services to appear in court, after he says the department failed to provide him with contact information that would allow his staff to ensure children are getting the care they need.

“I want all the kids in foster care that have court dates to be in front of me for those court dates,” Morgan said on the phone. “I worry more about the kids who have had 30 placements. Those are the ones I want to know, ‘Are we just jumping from house to house? What exactly is going on?’ So really, this is just us trying to do our due diligence to make sure that everybody is being taken care of, and that we're getting the full story.”

Morgan said he first asked the department for a list of contacts after hearing about a class action complaint filed against the department, as well as concerns about children sleeping in offices, as reported by Local 3 Investigates.

When he made the request, he said he expected the department to deny it on the basis that those in custody are minors. This information is not typically provided. However, he was told he could have the list within weeks. By the time he met with DCS staff last Monday, he still hadn’t received the list. They instead provided him with a sheet of names, which he said didn’t include some families he’s personally interacted with in court.

“The list is, frankly, no better than something I could have put together myself in a few hours just by going through all of our cases,” Morgan said.

Afterward, he ordered the local DCS attorney to ensure that all children appear when he hears their cases. He said he recognizes that court is not a place he’d like children to be.
“Obviously, if I've got a 14-year-old and I can have a staff member call them and talk to them, and say, ‘Hey, how are things going? Where are you? Is it the same place you've been? Are the people nice? Are you doing good in school?’ You know, just checking in on them, making sure everything's going okay — that was kind of our goal,” Morgan said.
The judge points to severe understaffing at the local level as a contributing factor for his inability to keep tabs on all the children whose cases he presides over.

“The biggest problem is, anytime you have a behemoth, such as a state agency, it's an uphill battle with all the bureaucracy and red tape. And frankly, that's part of the reason that I do things the way I do them,” Morgan said.

The new courtroom policy, which Morgan outlined in a Facebook post Sunday, comes just days after Aftyn Behn, a Democratic state representative from Davidson County, filed a federal complaint against the department on behalf of 14 families.

“These families — all they're trying to do, especially these parents — they’re trying to get their kids back, they're trying to be reunited with their kids, they are doing everything that DCS is telling them, and DCS is still withholding their kids and putting them into precarious situations,” Behn said.

The complaint cites discrimination against children with documented disabilities, children being sexually assaulted in DCS-certified foster placements and DCS case records being falsified, among other claims.

DCS declined to comment on Behn’s complaint, as well as Judge Morgan’s comments.
There are currently 7,841 children in Tennessee DCS custody, slightly up from 7,798 in early March, according to numbers provided to Local 3. There have been no kids sleeping in offices since early January, according to DCS.

Behn, who filed a similar complaint in March with the Department of Justice before being referred to the Department of Health and Human Services, said her office has been overwhelmed with calls since filing the complaint Friday.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” said Behn, who’s a social worker. “I did not want to take this up, but when we are receiving dozens and hundreds of stories of testimony saying the same thing happened again, and again and again, you cannot negate the fact that this is a systemic pattern within DCS, and that it has to be changed.”

None of Behn’s own constituents are included in the complaint. Families from Hamilton, Bradley and Grundy counties are among those included.

“These are families that reached out to their Republican legislators, and either they were ignored or their legislators are doing things behind the scenes,” she said.

Some families shared their stories with Behn at an event in Goodlettsville on Saturday.
One Hamilton County family involved in the complaint says they are facing the termination of parental rights and will be back in court next month. According to an online testimony shared by Rep. Behn, at seven weeks old, the Savelys’ son, Holston, born in September 2023, was taken to the ER for a swollen thigh. He turned out to have a fractured femur as well as other fractures and abnormal lab results.

However, the Savelys say they were accused of abuse by a pediatrician, and DCS took their son into custody. By March 2024, the Savelys write that they were vindicated after Holston was diagnosed with infantile rickets and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Two additional medical experts confirmed his diagnosis, the Savelys claim. Still, the family says DCS is trying to terminate parental rights.

“Next month, Mason and Madalyn will be in court, facing the possibility that they could have their parental rights terminated because a CAP and CPS refuse to acknowledge that Holston is medically fragile and has diagnosed conditions that conclusively explain the fractures,” the family argues.

The mother, Madalyn Savely, did not respond to Local 3’s request for an interview Monday.
In response to a question over whether Behn believes DCS is acting wrongly in all of the 14 cases, she said, "I am not denying the fact that there are some circumstances in cases where the kids need to be removed from the home, but overall, that is not the case.”
Behn is calling for the firing of DCS Commissioner Margie Quin, who Governor Bill Lee appointed in 2022.

While Judge Morgan said he doesn’t directly fault Quin, whom he’s met with several times, he said change must start at the top.

“Give me the job — We'll get it fixed within six months,” he said. “I think that you have to have a totally different viewpoint about handling these cases.”

When a new governor takes office in January, they would have the authority to fire Quin and appoint a new commissioner.

Senator Marsha Blackburn, the Republican gubernatorial frontrunner, did not respond to Local 3’s question asking if she would retain Quin, but said the system is broken.

“All children deserve to grow up in an environment where they are safe and supported, and as it stands now, the foster care system fails too many of our most vulnerable children,” Blackburn said. “As a mother and a grandmother, I am passionate about building a foster care system that serves the needs of those who have no choice but to rely on it. I’ve met with foster parents and children advocates about changes that can be made immediately on Day 1 and beyond to put children first, increase accountability and give children every opportunity to succeed.  As Governor, I will continue to fight and to fix a broken system; that is my promise to these children.”

In the Senate, Blackburn, alongside Georgia Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, introduced legislation last year that would create a DOJ program to award states that require recording of all Child Protective Services (CPS) interviews with children and adults. The recordings would not be shared outside of law enforcement investigations.

Regardless of who takes office as governor, Behn said she hopes they would sign a legislative package of bills reforming DCS.

“A lot of these families, what we're hoping to do, is work with them the next few months, bring them together [and] put together a platform of maybe a dozen incremental band-aid bills that then can be pushed as a package for the new governor next session,” she said. “I would like to see full reform. However, obviously I'm in the Democratic minority, so I don't have governing power. But I do think supporting these families and having the agency to not only advocate for themselves but to advocate for change at the legislative level is what I'll be focused on the next few months.”