The number of children placed in foster care because their addict parents can't care for them has surged across the nation. But the problem is particularly acute in a handful of states, including Indiana.
Mary Beth Bonaventura, who's stepping down after five years as director of the Department of Child Services, warned in her resignation letter to Gov. Eric Holcomb that a continuation of his administration's policies will "all but ensure children will die."
The deal resolves a northern Indiana family's decade-long legal fight to clear their names after the Department of Child Services falsely prosecuted them for their daughter's death.
Indiana’s newest state psychiatric hospital, which is about to rise on the campus of Community Hospital East, is designed to fill a critical gap in the state’s mental health landscape.
Marion Superior Court Judge Heather Welch said plaintiff Mary Price has no right to bring the claim under an Indiana law setting a maximum caseload at 17 and should take her complaint to the State Employee Appeals Commission.
The additional staff should bring the Department of Child Services in line with caseload guidelines in state law, according to a new report that Deloitte Consulting released Wednesday.
Some Democratic legislators are pushing for greater action over the Indiana Department of Child Services' failure to meet state-mandated workload standards for case managers.
Doris Tolliver, the agency's chief of staff, told the State Budget Committee on Wednesday that only one of its 19 regions is meeting the workload standards for case workers.
If all the money is distributed, it will bring the state’s total spending on domestic violence programs to $4.2 million this year. That’s about 35 percent more than the state spent last year.
The state will pay $15.1 million to about 1,800 families who adopted special needs children. The settlement was filed in LaPorte Superior Court on Thursday afternoon and still needs court approval.
An advocate for victims of domestic violence said her group reached agreement Thursday with Indiana officials over funding for the private agencies serving them, but a state official denied there was a deal.
Indiana has hired more case workers to keep track of its most vulnerable residents. But complaints about overwork continue to surface as the state battles questions about the accuracy of data on caseloads.
The move comes just two months after a LaPorte woman filed a lawsuit, saying the state owed her subsidies.
The Indiana Department of Child Services says it isn't paying subsidies to parents who adopted special-needs children out of foster care because the state Legislature hasn't appropriated enough money.
The head of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration is on her way out just as negotiations heat up with federal officials over Gov. Mike Pence’s alternative to a traditional Medicaid expansion.
The Indiana Court of Appeals has reversed a Marion County judge’s finding that IBM did not materially breach the contract it had with the state to modernize its welfare system.
Lawyers representing Indiana asked an appeals court Monday to refund much of the money the state has paid IBM for a failed welfare privatization effort, but the company countered it's actually entitled to even more.
Attorney and real estate developer Paul J. Page will serve two years of probation and pay a $10,000 fine for concealing the source of a $362,000 down payment on his purchase of a state-leased office building in Elkhart.
The state is appealing a Marion County judge's ruling last year awarding $52 million to IBM after then-Gov. Mitch Daniels canceled what was a 10-year, $1.37 billion contract.
When FSSA revealed the breach a month ago, it said it possibly affected more than 187,000 people, including the Social Security numbers of as many as 3,926 clients who receive food stamps, Medicaid and other welfare benefits.
