Monique Lewis has come up with a few tricks to motivate her foster child to come to school.
Some days she enjoys a McDonald’s Frappuccino. But on days when the 13-year-old has trouble even getting out of bed, a counselor from Aviva Family and Children’s Services is available to help.
The judge said Lewis’s Compton home was the first home the girl had never run away from.
The girl, whom the Times is not identifying because she is a minor, is one of thousands of foster children in California who may soon have to move to a new home because of a statewide insurance crisis.
A major insurer says that due to the rising cost of sexual abuse claims, it can no longer cover agencies like Aviva that recruit, certify and support foster parents. Without insurance, these foster family agencies can no longer provide supervised foster parents.
Aviva and several other agencies say they have never been sued for sexual abuse. But, citing an overall rise in costly lawsuits, the Nonprofit Insurance Alliance of California said, says it supports Approximately 90% of foster family agencies will let their policies expire in October.
According to People Who Work for Children, about 1 in 5 of the more than 40,000 children living in foster care across the state — who have already experienced significant instability in their lives — could become homeless.
Some government officials familiar with the situation see two possible solutions.
Nonprofits could find new insurers, though many of them have already left the market. Or, if that doesn’t happen, county governments will soon have to take over responsibility for homes overseen by foster family agencies — a complicated bureaucratic process that could take months.
Advocates and foster parents say it’s unclear whether already understaffed county agencies — which oversee about 20,000 children in foster homes across the state — can provide the same level of support as nonprofit organizations, which typically offer additional comprehensive services.
“These kids are going to suffer the most,” Lewis, an experienced foster parent, said from her 13-year-old foster daughter’s upstairs bedroom. “Especially if they’re put into hands that aren’t the right ones.”
The Insurance Alliance, a California nonprofit, declined to tell the Times how much it has spent on recent sexual abuse claims, citing confidentiality agreements.
But Pamela Davis, president of the insurance coalition, pointed to a recent $25 million investment. Jury verdict The suit was filed in Sonoma County on behalf of three siblings, ages 7, 5, and 2, who were sexually abused by their foster parents.
Just as bushfires and floods have made some properties too expensive to insure, such payouts are forcing the company to exit the market, he said.
Amber Rivas, Aviva’s president, is looking for an insurer before the nonprofit’s policy expires in November. Only one company contacted her, offering a quote that would “bankrupt our program.”
“This is devastating,” Rivas said. “We fully support the right of sexual abuse survivors to seek justice in court. At the same time, California’s leaders cannot sit idly by while foster youth are at risk of living on the streets.”
Susan Abrams, deputy director of the Children’s Law Center of California, which advocates for foster children throughout the state, said it’s critical that current and former foster children have a path to sue for abuse.
She hopes the county will step in for foster homes affected by the insurance change so kids can stay there.
Monique Lewis says the judge told her her home was the first place her 13-year-old foster child hadn’t run away from.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
The L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services, the state’s largest child welfare agency, said in a statement that losing these homes “would be devastating for hundreds of children who could be displaced.”
At least 1,100 of the approximately 13,700 foster children Placed by DCFS According to a survey by the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, children may have to move to a new home within the next year if insurance runs out.
The awards hang in the bedroom of Lewis’s youngest foster child.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
California passed a law in 2020 that extended the time limit for adults to file suit for childhood sexual abuse. Wave of lawsuits This has impacted school districts, archdioceses and other entities responsible for the welfare of children.
In L.A. County Predicted It could spend up to $3 billion to compensate victims of sexual abuse in juvenile detention centers and foster homes.
“This is not just a (foster family agency) issue. It’s not just a county issue,” said Eileen Cubansky, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Association of California. The association is an advocacy group for county department heads. “All agencies that have some form of contact with children … are struggling with this problem.”
Davis, of the Nonprofit Insurance Alliance, said statute-of-limitations changes are only part of the picture.
He said plaintiffs’ attorneys have become more aggressive, encouraging some agencies to settle claims before they fully know the facts of the case.
In most cases, he said, foster family agencies are paying the price for county governments’ mistakes because they are required to take legal responsibility under the terms of their contracts.
Davis said juries outraged by major sexual abuse scandals at universities and inside the Catholic Church have become willing to pay large sums of money, even when agencies fail to prevent the abuse.
He pointed to a nearly $25 million judgment in Sonoma County. Alternative Family Services, the agency that cared for the children in the home, had to pay about $15 million, and the rest had to be paid to the foster parents.
Davis argued that the agency couldn’t have predicted abuse from a foster parent who had undergone a background check.
Sponsored by the Nonprofit Insurance Alliance Bill A bill was passed in the recent legislative session making it more difficult for victims to sue foster family agencies.
Much of the bill was scrapped, as several advocacy groups argued that it infringed on victims’ rights and that there was little evidence of reconciliation in sexual abuse cases.
“There’s no evidence that this is true,” Ed Howard of the Children’s Advocacy Institute said in an interview.
“We haven’t seen it,” said Nancy Peverini of Consumer Lawyers of California, one of the groups opposing the bill. “They’ve cited one case.”
Both organizations blamed the Nonprofit Insurance Alliance for the crisis because it allowed the Sonoma County case to go to trial rather than settle, and then promptly canceled the policies.
Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz), who introduced the bill, said, reworked it That would make it easier for counties to take over responsibility for foster homes from nonprofits. The bill is awaiting the governor’s signature.
Pellerin emphasized in a statement that the bill is a “temporary solution” to keep the most vulnerable foster children in their homes.
“Unfortunately, the counties are not set up to provide adequate and proper care for these children,” he said.
Damian Zillas, corporate compliance attorney for the Insurance Alliance, said the weak bill is likely the nail in the coffin for foster family agencies.
“We stayed in the game as long as we could,” he said.
