Idaho foster child advocates concerned abuse is worsening amid policy and law changes

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — Programs in Idaho that support foster children have unique challenges across the regions, but lately, nearly all of them are reporting the same problem — children seem to be entering the state’s care with increasingly complex cases. 

Some of those cases involve much more severe abuse and neglect than in past years, according to interviews with multiple advocates for foster youth. 

“During the course of all of our 30 years up here in the First Judicial District, there were maybe a handful of aggravated (abuse and neglect) cases,” said District 1 Court Appointed Special Advocates Director of Development Kristin Linville Ludwig. “This year, we have had four in the First Judicial District alone. So that’s bad, and nobody wants that to happen.” 

Advocates point to several factors contributing to this. One factor includes an early 2024 Idaho court decision that appeared to prompt a steep decline in child removals and entry into foster care by law enforcement.

From 2015 to 2023, the average number of foster care entries initiated by law enforcement was around 948 per year, according to data from Health and Welfare. In fiscal year 2024, there were 633 entries by police. In fiscal year 2025, which ended June 30, the number was 263.

Other factors include isolation from the COVID-19 pandemic, and federal and state policies that emphasize more on prevention and reunification with biological parents, several foster child advocates said.

Children in foster care are represented by a trained volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA, and each judicial district in Idaho has a program to train and support these volunteers. The Idaho Capital Sun spoke to leaders from all but one district CASA program; the East Idaho District 7 office could not be reached by publication time.  

Linville Ludwig oversees the program in North Idaho, which has seen a decline in the number of children entering the system but she said her volunteers have noticed an increase in complexity of cases. 

As of Sept. 23, there were 1,172 foster children in Idaho, down slightly from 1,400 children at the end of June last year.

Jean Fisher — administrator of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Division of Youth Safety and Permanency and former longtime Ada County prosecutor who specialized in crimes against children — said she’s also seen a rise in complexity. 

“Whether that is both mental health, behavioral health, and the type of abuse and physical abuse that they have endured, I think all of it is much higher than it used to be,” Fisher said. 

Advocates: Pandemic one of the factors in the severity of child protection cases

The reasons for the increasing severity are hard to track, but multiple CASA leaders told the Sun that the COVID-19 pandemic and isolation seemed to have a lasting effect. 

“Coming out of COVID, we started to see some really frightening things more regularly than we had been,” District 6 CASA Executive Director Lesli Schei said. 

Schei’s district covers Bannock, Bear Lake, Caribou, Franklin, Oneida and Power counties. 

She said with children not going to school and spending more time in their home, there weren’t as many other adults able to report suspected cases. If a child is being abused in the home, it tends to worsen over time, she said. 

“It was a very stressful time to work in child protection,” Schei said. “And I think that trend somewhat has continued.” 

Fisher also said the pandemic hampered child protection efforts. 

“For kids who have been experiencing severe abuse or neglect, not only is it just longer years of being in that, but it’s longer years of being in it and isolated,” Fisher said.

The isolation can lead to behavior being normalized for children, Fisher said, which can delay disclosure by the child. 

Zenita Delva, executive director of District 2 CASA, which covers Clearwater, Latah, Lewis, Idaho and Nez Perce counties, said the number of foster children dropped significantly during the pandemic and hasn’t returned to prior levels. 

Delva said the north central CASA program was serving 54 children in September. It had typically served around 150 to 200 children at a time a few years ago, she said. 

“COVID obviously did a little bit of that, but it should’ve picked up afterwards, but it hasn’t,” she said. “It’s just continually decreased and decreased.” 

Maggie Thompson, director of programs for the Fourth District CASA program in Ada County, said number of foster children in the region are also declining. The program, which also serves Boise, Elmore and Valley counties, was actively serving 288 children in September. Last year, the program served a total of 461, down from 516 the year before and 550 two years before. 

Linville Ludwig, of the North Idaho CASA group, is also seeing cases going down. The program has about 76 active cases, she said, and the group has averaged about 240 cases a year. Prior to the pandemic in 2020, the group used to serve about 450 cases a year, she said. 

An Idaho court decision may have limited law enforcement’s role in child removals 

In 2017, a Health and Welfare social worker and Ada County Sheriff’s Office detective visited a trailer after an anonymous report from a neighbor regarding loud crashing sounds and a child with an “unexplained black eye.” 

The detective and social worker determined the inside was “filthy,” reporting water puddled on floor, clutter strewn throughout, and feces and urine filled and were crusted onto the toilet, according to court documents. 

The detective told the parents during the visit that she thought the children were in imminent danger and took them into state custody. A judge soon decided to keep the children in foster homes for a few weeks to ensure the trailer remained cleaned. 

The parents challenged the removal in federal court. 

In early January 2024, U.S. District Court of Idaho Judge David Nye ruled that the detective violated the parents’ constitutional rights by removing the children without a warrant. In the case, called Ingram v. Mouser, Nye ruled that the dirty house did not indicate the children would have been in imminent danger in the time it would have taken to receive a warrant for their removal. 

After the decision, there was a steep decline in child removals and entry into foster care from law enforcement. 

Fisher, of Health and Welfare, said the courts have tried to create a system to provide warrants over the phone that would help expedite removals if needed, but not every law enforcement office is using this method. 

“We literally have law enforcement agencies across the state that are refusing to do this work now, and they are claiming that it’s about liability, even though the courts have provided the mechanism for this to happen,” Fisher said. “And I feel like they kind of take a hands off approach to this. I do think that we are missing a number of children out there.” 

Only a judge or police officer may decide to remove a child from their parents’ custody. Social workers with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare may do assessments and make recommendations to prosecutors, but they do not have authority to remove children.  

Delva, of the second district CASA, said she’s seen a significant decrease in child removals by law enforcement in Nez Perce County. In a September interview, Delva said the county saw a police officer remove a child recently, but that it was “the first removal in years.” 

“Very seldom does that happen,” she said. 

The Nez Perce County Prosecutor’s Office does not track the number of child removals by law enforcement, a staff member told the Sun. 

“We’re just seeing some really crazy things that are happening, definitely not in children’s best interest,” Delva said. “There’s no way we only have 50 kids that are abused in this district, there just isn’t.” 

Some advocates concerned prevention-first policies are keeping some kids in situations too long

Not every district saw a decline in foster children, but most CASA leaders said volunteers are seeing a higher severity of the cases that do come in. 

“I’ve been an executive director for 18 years, and I probably in the past two years have seen the worst cases that I’ve ever seen come across, and pretty significant abuse,” said District 5 CASA Executive Director Tahna Barton. 

Her district covers Twin Falls, Blaine, Camas, Cassia, Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln, and Minidoka counties. 

She said many of these children have been experiencing significant abuse or neglect for a long time before being removed and placed in foster care.

“I don’t know why we’re not catching them sooner,” she said, “or if we’re trying to work a prevention plan with them, most of the cases that do come in are prevention plans that have failed.” 

In recent years, state and federal child welfare authorities have shifted toward policies meant to prevent removal of children from their homes by providing families with services to keep the environment safe and healthy for their kids. 

In his first term, President Donald Trump signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, which included the Family First Prevention Services Act. The act included federal funding focused on prevention services. 

This year, the Idaho Legislature approved a budget for Health and Welfare that highly emphasized prevention. Former agency director Alex Adams announced a primary focus on improving the state’s foster care system when he took over in June 2024. Adams and his Deputy Director of Child, Youth & Family Services, Monty Prow, have both highlighted shifting to prevention. 

RELATED | In foster care, Idaho Department Health and Welfare budget proposal focuses on prevention

Prow in a previous interview with the Sun likened the focus to building a fence around a large cliff rather than paying for the ambulance at the bottom. 

“Would you rather invest in fences or ambulances?” Prow said at the time. “It’s very clear. Research is clear that investing in avoiding the fall from the cliff is far better for everybody. Not just the youth, not just the family, but the community.”

The agency’s approved budget this year included 36 new staff positions focused on prevention services, including visiting homes regularly to assess safety and providing or connecting families with services, such as for mental health, anger management, or substance use treatment, the Sun reported. 

In fiscal year 2015, 89.3% of removals from families were primarily due to neglect, according to data provided by Health and Welfare. In fiscal year 2025, neglect accounted for 59.7% of removals. 

Many of the CASA directors told the Sun they aren’t privy to prevention cases, as they only are involved once a child is removed and enters the court system, so they can’t know how many are successful. 

Fisher, of Health and Welfare, said that many of the prevention cases are successful, but she can see why the advocates may get frustrated when they see a case that’s come in after a long time. 

“People then look at it and say, ‘well, you’ve had this case for a whole year, and look at all the problems.’ But it’s not because we haven’t tried to keep this family out,” Fisher said. “We’ve worked with them, we’ve done everything that we can, and now we know that we know they need the services and bring them into the court and that kind of more expansive oversight that we try to avoid if we can.” 

Elisha Horrocks, who oversees the District 3 CASA program in southwest Idaho, said she’s unaware of successful prevention plans in her area, but that “the failed prevention plans we do see are usually the worst abuse.” 

Thompson, whose CASA program in and around the Treasure Valley, said that in some of the severe cases she’s seen, it has been when prevention didn’t work. She doesn’t think the focus is all negative, however. 

She and other CASA directors agreed that prevention cases for families who are in need of services, such as help buying groceries or other basics, are better than removing children from their parents in many situations. 

“There is a very fine line between poverty and neglect,” Thompson said. “And as a private citizen and a human being, I don’t believe that parents should be punished for living in poverty. … It’s so easy to Monday morning quarterback the Department of Health and Welfare because we get to see what happens when reasonable efforts aren’t possible to keep a family together.”

Idaho Health and Welfare has a plan to keep children safe in prevention or removal cases 

Each person interviewed by the Sun said the increasing severity of abuse may stem from a complicated combination of factors — including some prevention policies, the pandemic, as well as economic hardships and increasingly poor mental health nationwide.

However, when it comes to a factor Health and Welfare can control, Fisher said she wants to focus any prevention effort on the safety of the children. 

She is spearheading a return to use of a tool that she believes will help children in these cases expeditiously get to the best outcome for their situation. 

Earlier this month, she initiated training using what are called “poor prognosis indicators,” which are national standards to determine if a child would be better served by reunification or termination and permanency in the form of adoption by another family. 

“They’re national indicators that would really be able to help our social workers critically think through cases where they, based on what those indicators are, might understand the case a little bit better from an earlier perspective that this case clearly has some reunification efforts that are very strong,” Fisher said.

If the indicators suggest a “poor prognosis” for the child, then case workers would try to move more quickly toward placement in foster care and eventual adoption so children aren’t “languishing in foster care,” Fisher said.

In advance of rolling out this method, the agency analyzed its cases from 2023 and 2024 with the indicators and found they often accurately predicted termination of parental rights. 

“It was astounding how accurate the indicators were,” she said. 

Training began regionally at the beginning of October and is expected to finish by the end of December, she said. 

“If we can reunify children with families, that is a goal, and that’s great, but that’s not our job.” Fisher said. “Our job is the safety of children.” 

Barton, of the District 5 CASA program, noted that prevention-first policies and the Ingram v. Mouser decision occurred around the same time, and said it was “a perfect storm” for child welfare cases that raised alarms for her and other advocates. 

Barton and every leader of Idaho CASA programs who talked to the Sun expressed a strong desire for improved outcomes in foster care, but also a belief that change was possible. 

“It’s been my experience that the system is broke,” Barton said. “But within that system, there are a lot of people that care, and a lot of people that are doing the best they can with what they’ve been given … They’re really passionate and care about our children. And I think that easily gets lost in the finger pointing and the blaming.”