Many Indiana families will begin receiving government benefits this week to make up for the meals their children are missing while school buildings are closed due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The grant from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will be used to improve the coordination of clinical care and the integration of other services that are critical for maternal and child health and recovery, officials said.
Staff turnover is down, caseload sizes are dropping and the ratio of supervisors to case managers has improved in the year since an outside review found numerous shortcomings in the Indiana Department of Child Services.
Child neglect and abuse fatalities fell by nearly a quarter during its 2016 fiscal year, the Indiana Department of Child Services reported Wednesday.
An estimated 85,000 low-income Hoosiers who receive Medicaid benefits will soon need to find a job, volunteer, get job training, or go to school—or risk losing health care for a few months.
Five reviews of the Indiana Department of Child Services cost more than $1.3 million but yielded no state action to address the troubled agency's increasing caseloads.
Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma said Monday that he was "disturbed" after finding out that the state's child welfare agency failed to take action after five different reviews conducted in recent years found problems at the agency.
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.
