Child Welfare System – Mississippi

Mississippi fights to keep control of Its beleaguered child welfare system, By Emily Palmer and Campbell Robertson, January 17, 2016, New York Times: “In 2003, a tiny girl weighing little more than 20 pounds arrived at an emergency shelter here on the gulf coast, after being shuttled between five foster homes and youth shelters in three months. ‘Who’s the baby?’ Terry Latham, the director of the shelter, recalled asking. ‘I’m no baby,’ the girl shouted, her ribs visible in her emaciated body. ‘I’m 4.’  The girl, identified as Olivia Y., who suffered from profound malnourishment and possibly sexual abuse, would become one of 13 children whose experiences formed a class-action lawsuit in 2004 against the state’s Division of Family and Children’s Services for ‘failing in its duty’ to protect its own children.  More than a decade later, after a 2008 settlement and an admission by the state in July that it had never complied with the requirements, Mississippi is now trying to avoid becoming the first state to have its child welfare system put in receivership and an outside group hired to run it…”