Foster Care Abuse Ruling Goes Against State Workers

Foster Care Abuse Ruling Goes Against State Workers

Foster care workers can be held liable if the children they place in foster homes are sexually abused by other children in the home who were known perpetrators or victims of sexual abuse, a federal appellate court has ruled.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, involves a case in which three children - who were 8, 5 and 3 at the time - were repeatedly molested in 1999 and 2000 by older children in a Florida foster home. The suit alleged that even after a documented case of child-on-child sexual abuse occurred in the same house in July 1999 nothing was done to protect the younger children.