Justice for Kids® – Fighting for Children in Oregon

Oregon’s child welfare system is in crisis. For years, foster children in the custody of the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) have been physically, sexually, and emotionally abused inside a system that was supposed to protect them. Oregon’s child welfare agency has spent nearly a decade under intense legal scrutiny following class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of foster children who were placed in dangerous and unstable environments.

Despite years of public promises, “reform plans,” and federal oversight, Oregon continues to face heartbreaking failures. Children are forced to sleep in hotels, offices, and state buildings. Youth are placed in out-of-state facilities where they have suffered abuse, restraint, and neglect. Children in ODHS custody are exposed to sexual assault, unnecessary institutionalization, and the absence of even the most basic safety checks.

Across Oregon—Portland, Salem, Eugene, Bend, Medford, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham, Springfield, and Corvallis—foster children and their families feel the weight of these failures every day. These children are not case numbers. They are sons, daughters, siblings, students, neighbors, and clients of attorneys representing them whose lives have been shaped by the negligence of a system that did not keep them safe. Many children live with relatives, foster parents, group homes, and residential treatment centers that were supposed to protect them.

Justice for Kids®, a division of Kelley Kronenberg, is one of the few law practices in the country focused on representing children harmed by government systems—including foster care, child protection agencies, residential treatment facilities, schools, and other institutions responsible for children’s safety. Our attorneys know child welfare systems because we limit our work to children who are in child welfare and disability systems.

Our work in Oregon centers on holding ODHS and private foster care providers accountable when they fail to protect children who are injured by physical or sexual abuse in foster care.

A System Under Federal Scrutiny: Oregon’s Foster Care Failures

Oregon’s modern child-welfare crises revolve around multiple class-action lawsuits that exposed widespread dangers inside the foster care system. These lawsuits highlighted disturbing, system-wide failures—including unsafe homes, hoteling, abuse in out-of-state residential programs, and inadequate mental-health services.

Wyatt B. v. Brown – The Class Action That Exposed Oregon’s Crisis

Filed in 2016, Wyatt B. v. Brown became the centerpiece of Oregon’s child-welfare litigation. It was brought on behalf of foster children who had been repeatedly moved, placed in dangerous homes, sent out of state to abusive institutions, or left in hotels and offices because ODHS had nowhere else to put them.

The lawsuit revealed that:

• Children spent days—or weeks—sleeping in hotels, ODHS offices, and temporary rooms without proper supervision.
• Many foster children were placed in heavily restrictive institutions, including out-of-state facilities with histories of abuse, restraints, and neglect.
• Oregon was sending children thousands of miles away to programs in states like Utah, Montana, and Michigan—many of which faced serious abuse allegations.
• High caseworker turnover and unmanageable caseloads made it impossible to provide safe oversight.
• Children with disabilities and mental-health needs received little or no treatment.

In 2022, Oregon agreed to a sweeping settlement requiring major changes in safety, placement stability, caseworker staffing, and services. But just like the decades-long litigation in Illinois, a settlement does not mean children are safe.

A.B. v. Brown – Out-of-State Placement Abuse

Another major lawsuit, A.B. v. Brown, focused on Oregon’s practice of shipping foster children to out-of-state residential treatment facilities that were unregulated, unmonitored, and often dangerous.

Children in ODHS custody endured:

• Physical and sexual abuse
• Improper use of restraints
• Isolation or seclusion rooms
• Overmedication
• Physical neglect, lack of schooling, and unsafe living conditions

The lawsuit forced Oregon to bring children back into the state and reevaluate its reliance on out-of-state placements. Still, the fact that ODHS ever relied on these facilities—and continued doing so even after warning signs—reflects deep systemic failure.

D.B. v. Brown – “Hoteling” and Children Sleeping in Offices

The lawsuit known as D.B. v. Brown focused on ODHS’s long-running practice of placing foster children in hotels, offices, and makeshift overnight locations because ODHS had no safe, appropriate homes.

Some children slept:

• On office floors
• In conference rooms
• In ODHS agency buildings
• In government facilities with no child-specific accommodations

This dangerous practice often involved teenagers, LGBTQ+ youth, and children with complex mental-health needs. Hoteling placed children at risk of:

• Sexual exploitation
• Running away
• Self-harm
• Lack of supervision
• Physical and emotional trauma

Although Oregon promised to stop the practice, reports show that children continue to experience unsafe temporary placements—proving the reforms have not yet solved the crisis.

Other Systemic Failures Documented in Oregon

In addition to these major lawsuits, investigative reports, audits, and federal findings have documented ongoing problems, including:

• Chronic caseworker shortages
• High turnover, leaving inexperienced workers with overwhelming responsibilities
• Inadequate foster-parent recruiting and training
• Children placed far from their families and communities
• Lack of services for children with disabilities
• Failure to track or respond to abuse allegations in foster homes
• Delay in reunification or adoption because of administrative failures

Oregon’s system is overwhelmed, under-resourced, and systemically dangerous for many children in its care.

Ongoing ODHS Failures After the Wyatt B. Settlement

Although the Wyatt B. v. Brown settlement created a roadmap for reform, Oregon continues to struggle with the same systemic failures that gave rise to the class action. As with all child welfare settlements, signing the agreement did not eliminate the underlying problems that put foster children in danger. Instead, the years following the settlement have made clear that ODHS has still failed to meet even its most basic responsibilities to Oregon’s most vulnerable children.

In recent years, Oregon’s audits, oversight reports, and media investigations have revealed ongoing issues, including:

• Persistent hoteling, where children continue to sleep in hotels or state offices due to a lack of placements.
• High staff turnover, leaving inexperienced caseworkers to make crucial safety decisions.
• Severe placement shortages, especially for children with disabilities, trauma histories, or significant mental-health needs.
• Children placed far from home, sometimes hours away from their schools, therapists, and siblings.
• Inadequate supervision, leading to injuries, disappearances, and abuse within foster homes and facilities.
• Poor communication between ODHS units, which results in delayed investigations and inconsistent decision-making.

These failures harm children every day. Younger children may experience attachment disruption, regression, and developmental delays. Teenagers often run away, become homeless, or are targeted for trafficking and are victims of sexual abuse. Children with disabilities lose critical therapies, medical oversight, and educational supports. Siblings are separated because ODHS cannot find homes willing or able to accommodate them together.

Even when ODHS identifies dangerous conditions in a foster home or facility, children are often left there due to a lack of alternatives. This creates predictable patterns of injury, trauma, and instability. Families ask: “If ODHS knew this placement was unsafe, why was my child left there?” Unfortunately, the answers reflect a child welfare system stretched far past capacity.

For many children, especially those in hoteling or inappropriate placements, the harm is life-altering. They lose months—or years—of schooling. They are pulled from mental-health treatment. They develop trauma-related conditions that could have been prevented. The risk of sexual abuse is increased as safety plans cannot be appropriately implemented and many children run where they can be sexually abused by traffickers. These consequences do not fade when the settlement is signed.

Justice for Kids® works to hold ODHS accountable in these cases, ensuring children who have been injured or neglected have the chance to heal and rebuild their lives.

Why Foster Children Are at Heightened Risk in Oregon

Oregon’s foster care system faces unique challenges that place children at heightened risk of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and harm. These challenges are not simply administrative problems—they are direct contributors to the traumatic experiences children face inside foster homes, shelters, offices, and residential programs.

Unlike larger states with more robust placement networks, Oregon has a relatively small pool of foster homes, meaning ODHS has fewer options for matching children with families who can meet their needs. When there are not enough qualified foster homes, children are placed with:

• Foster parents who lack training to support children with trauma or disabilities.
• Homes with prior complaints or “red flags” that should have prevented licensure.
• Group homes or residential programs intended only for short-term or crisis placements.
• Facilities far from their communities, schools, siblings, and support systems.

This lack of appropriate placements pushes ODHS into crisis-driven decisions that place children in harm’s way. When ODHS cannot find a placement, children are often forced into hotels or temporary office buildings, supervised by rotating staff who are not trained to care for traumatized youth. These situations increase the risk of:

• Running away
• Sexual exploitation and victimization
• Assault or self-harm
• Inadequate supervision
• Physical and emotional injury

Children with disabilities face additional dangers. Many require consistent medical monitoring, therapy, specialty education, and individualized services. When ODHS places these children in inappropriate or overly restrictive environments, they lose critical supports. Some children experience regression, behavioral crises, or significant medical complications as a result.

Teenagers, especially those with trauma histories, are also more likely to become “hard to place.” Instead of receiving trauma-informed care, they are often moved from home to home, left in hotels, or placed in institutions that cannot meet their needs. This instability feeds a cycle of mistrust, aggression, anxiety, and long-term emotional harm.

These systemic issues create predictable patterns of physical and sexual abuse and injury that Justice for Kids® sees across many Oregon cases. Our attorneys work to hold ODHS and private providers accountable when their decisions lead to children suffering preventable harm.

Justice for Kids® in Oregon: A Dedicated Child-Welfare Practice

Justice for Kids® is uniquely focused on representing children harmed in foster care, residential programs, group homes, and disability systems. We have and work with Oregon-licensed attorneys representing children who have been harmed physically, sexually, or emotionally while in state custody. As we have limited our practice to child protection and disability systems nationally and for decades, we have extensive experience in personal injury cases involving child welfare and disability systems.

Justin Grosz – Oregon-Licensed Attorney

Justin Grosz, a licensed Oregon attorney and Co-Business Unit Leader/Partner in the Justice for Kids® Division, brings decades of trial experience and child-welfare knowledge to Oregon cases. He has tried more than 230 jury trials to verdict and represents foster children who have suffered catastrophic harm because of failures in state systems, including child welfare, foster care, residential treatment programs, and school settings. https://justiceforkids.com/attorney/justin-grosz/

Justin’s litigation experience and understanding of institutional negligence contribute to every Oregon matter he handles. Families and advocates rely on him for thorough investigations, clear legal strategy, and compassionate representation for injured children.

Howard M. Talenfeld – National Child Welfare Advocate

Howard M. Talenfeld, founder of Justice for Kids®, is nationally recognized for representing abused, neglected, and injured children harmed in government systems. He has decades of experience in major child-welfare matters—class actions, civil-rights litigation, and complex injury cases. https://justiceforkids.com/attorney/howard-talenfeld/

Howard also serves on the Board of the Youth Law Center (ylc.org), a national organization dedicated to improving child welfare and juvenile justice practices. Howard’s work and leadership help guide Justice for Kids®’ advocacy approach in Oregon.

A Team Devoted to Children

Justice for Kids® attorneys help children who have been physically, sexually, emotionally, and psychologically abused by ODHS, foster parents, group homes, and residential treatment providers who failed to protect them.

The firm’s Oregon practice is committed not only to securing damages for injured children, but also to improving safety and oversight in the Oregon child welfare system so other children do not suffer the same harm.

Our Oregon Child-Welfare, Foster Care, and Abuse Services

Justice for Kids® handles a wide range of cases involving children harmed in the Oregon foster care system. While each case is unique, many fall into the following categories:

Oregon Foster Care Abuse and Neglect Cases

Our Oregon foster care attorneys review cases where children in ODHS custody suffered:

• Physical abuse, including hitting, choking, slapping, or violent punishment
• Sexual abuse or exploitation, including abuse by foster parents, other children, staff, or individuals in the home
• Chronic neglect, such as inadequate supervision, lack of food, medical neglect, or exposure to dangerous people
• Repeated placement disruptions, which worsen trauma and indicate poor oversight
• Failure to protect, when ODHS ignored reports or violated safety plans

We investigate whether ODHS:

• Ignored prior abuse allegations
• Returned children to unsafe homes
• Licensed unsafe foster parents
• Failed to provide services for children with disabilities or trauma histories
• Violated child welfare standards or Oregon’s rules for placement and supervision

Institutional & Residential Facility Cases

Many Oregon foster children are placed in:

• Group homes
• Residential treatment centers (RTCs)
• Psychiatric hospitals
• Detention centers
• Out-of-state facilities

Children in these settings often experience:

• Physical or sexual abuse
• Improper restraints
• Isolation or seclusion rooms
• Overmedication
• Peer-on-peer violence
• Staff misconduct or neglect

Our role is to determine whether ODHS and the facility:

• Violated care standards
• Ignored red flags
• Failed to investigate incidents
• Failed to move children to safer placements
• Delayed or denied access to mental-health services

 Negligent Adoption or Misrepresentation

Unfortunately, in many cases where children have been physically or sexually abused, some adopted children have endured multiple traumas and been diagnosed with severe mental health disorders like reactive attachment disorder, sexual aggressiveness or have other psychological disorders that were not disclosed by the adoption or child welfare agencies to adoptive parents when they adopted children from child protection systems, ODHS or other private foster care organizations. Others have been prematurely sexualized and have been physically or sexually aggressive with younger children in the family. Additionally, adoptive parents may need additional resources to treat these children or find temporary residential placements until it is safe to bring the children home or for other therapeutic needs of both the adoptive children or the children who were injured. Also, many adoption disruptions are preventable, at Justice for Kids®’, where it is appropriate, we fight to increase adoption subsidies and to bring damage claims for negligent or outright misrepresentation or fraud. Children who are surrendered because of adoption disruptions have been traumatized yet another time, so they may have significant claims for personal injury. The lawyers at Justice for Kids® fight to obtain the financial resources parents and children desperately need to preserve their families and properly treat these children.

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Children’s Civil Rights in Oregon

Oregon foster children have civil rights protected under state and federal law, including 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which allows damages for constitutional violations. Civil-rights claims may arise from:

• Abuse or exploitation in foster care
• Unnecessary institutionalization
• Dangerous hoteling or office-sleeping practices
• Excessive force or restraints in facilities
• Discrimination against LGBTQ+ youth
• Denial of disability accommodations
• Failure to protect children from known dangers

Civil-rights litigation can be a powerful tool for holding ODHS and foster care providers accountable when they violate children’s constitutional rights.

Children with Disabilities & Special Needs in Oregon

Oregon foster children with disabilities face heightened risks when ODHS and schools fail to provide appropriate supports. Justice for Kids® reviews cases involving:

• IEPs and 504 Plans that were ignored or poorly implemented
• Children with autism, intellectual disabilities, or severe mental-health needs placed in inappropriate or dangerous settings
• Lack of therapy, medication oversight, or specialized services
• Discriminatory exclusion, restraint, or discipline
• Failure to coordinate between ODHS and school districts

We evaluate how ODHS, foster parents, schools, and providers contributed to the harm the child suffered.

Serving Portland and Communities Across Oregon

Although many of Oregon’s most publicized ODHS failures occur in Portland, the child-welfare crisis extends across the state. Children are harmed in foster homes, shelters, and institutions in:

• Salem
• Eugene
• Gresham
• Beaverton
• Hillsboro
• Bend
• Medford
• Springfield
• Corvallis

No matter where a child lives—urban, suburban, or rural—ODHS and its contracted agencies have a legal duty to protect them.

If a child you care about has been harmed in Portland, Salem, Eugene, Bend, Medford, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham, Springfield, or Corvallis, you can contact Justice for Kids® to learn more about what happened and explore possible next steps.

What to Expect When You Contact Justice for Kids® About an Oregon Case

Reaching out about a child welfare case can feel overwhelming. Many families, foster parents, and guardians have already been through meetings with ODHS, court hearings, safety plans, and service providers. They may feel ignored, intimidated, or unsure of what to do next.

Here’s what to expect when you contact Justice for Kids®:

1. Initial Conversation

You share what happened—your concerns about the child, ODHS involvement, prior reports, placement history, and current safety issues.

2. Preliminary Review

If a potential case exists, we discuss how records may be obtained: ODHS files, medical records, school documentation, or court documents. We clarify privacy issues, timelines, and next steps.

3. Investigation & Strategy

The team reviews records, consults experts if needed, and evaluates legal options—negotiation, litigation, or other approaches aimed at both compensation and accountability.

4. Trauma-Informed Legal Support

We limit unnecessary interviews with the child, protect privacy, and ensure the legal process supports healing—not further trauma.

Frequently Asked Questions – Oregon Foster Care & ODHS

How many children are in foster care in Oregon?

Oregon typically has between 5,000 and 6,000 children in foster care, with thousands more cycling through ODHS every year. Over the past decade, tens of thousands of children have been impacted by ODHS decisions.

Can Justice for Kids® represent children and families in Oregon?

Yes. Justice for Kids® has attorneys, including Oregon-licensed lawyer Justin Grosz, who represent children harmed by abuse, neglect, and systemic failures within ODHS and foster care placements.

What kinds of Oregon cases does Justice for Kids® review?

We review cases involving:

• Abuse or neglect in foster homes
• Sexual assault or exploitation
• Injury or trauma in group homes, residential treatment centers, or psychiatric facilities
• Children sleeping in hotels, offices, or temporary ODHS sites
• Civil-rights violations involving unnecessary institutionalization or restraints
• Cases involving disability discrimination or denial of services
• The critical need for services post adoption

Do I have to be the child’s biological parent to report concerns?

No. We hear from:

• Attorneys or GALs
• Foster parents
• Relative and kinship caregivers
• Educators and professionals
• Former foster youth
• Community members worried about a child’s safety

What if I fear retaliation from ODHS or a provider?

That concern is understandable. We can talk confidentially about your fears, rights, and potential protections. In many cases, accountability is the strongest protection for a child.

Speak with Justice for Kids® About an Oregon Case

If you are an attorney, foster parent, caregiver, advocate, or former foster youth in Oregon and you’re concerned about how ODHS handled a child’s case, you do not have to navigate this alone.

Justice for Kids® represents children who have been harmed by ODHS and Oregon’s foster care system.

Our mission is simple:

• Protect children.
• Hold systems accountable.
• Push for change so children do not have to endure the same harm.

Whether the child you are concerned about lives in Portland, Salem, Eugene, Bend, Medford, Gresham, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Springfield, or Corvallis, you can reach out to us.

To discuss a potential Oregon case, contact Justice for Kids® through our website or by phone. We will listen, review your concerns, and help you understand what options may be available.

When public systems fail Oregon’s children by allowing them to be injured when they were supposed to be protected, legal advocacy can be the last—and sometimes only—line of protection for now and for their future.