Tennessee

Teenagers at a Tennessee detention facility have been sexually abused, locked in isolation cells for 23 hours a day and set up by staff to fight each other, two prominent advocacy groups have found.

There are pros and cons of child welfare systems partnering with churches, but if done right, it can be effective, writes Jessica Castillo.

Maine, Nebraska and Tennessee are among the states that have collectively been hoarding billions intended to help low-income families.

Students in foster care in Tennessee are exempt from a rule that bars kids who transfer to a new district from playing sports for a year.

New laws affecting the protection of children went into effect July 1 in Tennessee, including one that increases the penalty for knowingly exposing children to dangerous drugs.

In 2020, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed into law a a “religious freedom” bill ensuring that foster care and adoption agencies could continue to be eligible to receive taxpayer funding even if they refuse to serve same-sex foster and adoptive parents.

In 1980, Patrick Lawler was a young probation officer in Tennessee’s Shelby County. Lawler had started his career at just 18 working with boys in a local group home, which is why his experience caught the attention of Memphis judge Kenneth Turner.

On January 27, 2017, in the case of D.O. v Glisson, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati found that children placed with approved, unlicensed relatives were eligible for federal foster payments on the same basis as children placed in licensed foster homes.

The National Quality Improvement Center for Adoption and Guardianship Support and Preservation (QIC-AG) is a five-year cooperative agreement, funded through the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau, designed to promote permanence when reunification is no longer a goal and improve adoption and guardianship preservation and support.