Maine — Foster Care Abuse Claims

Maine: Decades of Reform and an Ongoing Systemic Crisis

Maine’s child welfare system has been in and out of crisis for decades. While foster care systems are legislatively charged with protecting children, they are instead responsible for re-abusing far too many of them, permanently damaging and subjecting vulnerable youth to horrifying rates of emotional, sexual, and physical abuse. Maine’s systemic issues that allow the foster children to be sexually and physically abused demonstrate a broader national reality: foster care is a failed human experiment on these kids. As one of the states entangled in class-action litigation for many years, Maine’s class-action lawsuit Bryan C v. Lambrew highlights these ongoing, active dangers. Children should not be removed from their natural parents who are their main source of safety, stability, and protection without a significant, compelling reason.

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Children reported missing from Connecticut DFCS custody, 2018–2022

Identified as likely sex trafficking victims

Of reviewed cases with unaddressed safety concerns

Medicaid-enrolled children affected, per the Isaac A. complaint

Foster care should protect children. In Maine, the record shows it too often fails them.

Pamela Leo, an independent family advocate, early literacy champion, and author of Connection Parenting., stated Children need at least one person in their life who thinks the sun rises and sets on them, who delights in their existence and loves them unconditionally.”

As sensitive advocates, Justice for Kids® continues to protect foster children by working with licensed, experienced lawyers in Maine to file personal injury and damage claims throughout the state. Justice for Kids® refuses to be silent.

The Litigation Record

Thirty-eight years of federal oversight

Every case below is part of one continuous legal fight: holding Maine’s child welfare system to the constitutional standard it has repeatedly failed to meet.

Bryan C. v. Lambrew: The Fight for Accountability

Filed in 2021, this federal class-action lawsuit challenged Maine's oversight of psychotropic medications prescribed to foster children, alleging failures involving medical records, informed consent, and mental health monitoring for children in state custody.

Class Action Lawsuit

Bryan C. v. Lambrew: The Fight for Accountability

On January 6, 2021, Maine's child welfare system became the subject of a federal class-action lawsuit, Bryan C. v. Lambrew (Case No. 1:21-cv-00005), filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine.

The lawsuit was brought by four foster children in the custody of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) on behalf of a proposed class of approximately 500 foster children affected by Maine's practices involving psychotropic medication oversight.

The defendants included Jeanne M. Lambrew, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, and Todd A. Landry, Director of the Maine Office of Child and Family Services.

The complaint alleged that Maine's child welfare system failed to adequately monitor and regulate the use of powerful psychiatric medications prescribed to children in foster care.

Plaintiffs alleged that these failures included inadequate medical and mental health records, insufficient informed consent procedures, limited review of psychotropic medications, and a lack of meaningful safeguards for vulnerable children in state custody.

The lawsuit was brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 , alleging violations of federal protections, including the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act and the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause .

The plaintiffs argued that children in foster care require stronger protections because they depend on state agencies to safeguard their medical care, treatment decisions, and overall well-being.

On May 28, 2021, Maine officials filed a motion to dismiss challenging the claims.

On October 4, 2021, U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen denied the state's motion to dismiss, allowing the plaintiffs' core claims to continue.

The court's decision allowed the lawsuit to proceed and permitted further litigation regarding Maine's policies and practices involving psychotropic medication management for foster children.

The parties later reached a comprehensive settlement agreement addressing the concerns raised in the lawsuit.

On November 27, 2024, the court granted final approval of the settlement, requiring Maine to implement reforms designed to improve oversight and accountability for children receiving psychotropic medications while in foster care.

The settlement required the creation of Portable Health Records to improve access to children's medical information and continuity of care.

The agreement also required stronger informed consent procedures that included youth participation and established a psychiatric Clinical Review Team to evaluate medication-related decisions.

As part of the settlement, Maine agreed to provide $675,000 in attorneys' fees for the plaintiffs' legal representation.

Bryan C. v. Lambrew represents an important child welfare accountability case focused on protecting foster children from gaps in medical oversight and ensuring that government agencies maintain appropriate safeguards when making significant healthcare decisions.

The case demonstrates the importance of transparency, accurate medical records, informed participation, and independent review when vulnerable children depend on state systems for essential care.

Through the settlement reforms, Maine's child welfare system was required to establish additional protections intended to improve medication monitoring and healthcare coordination for children in foster care.

The Human Cost

Numbers a docket can't fully carry

Missing child reports involving 1,790 individual Maine foster children

Foster youth high school graduation rate, vs. over 83% of statewide peers

Ever attain a four-year college degree

0+ days

Some high-needs children housed in offices and budget motels

Justice for Kids® Refuses to Be Silent

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If your child was harmed in Maine's foster care system, you have the right to answers.

We connect families with licensed Maine attorneys who handle personal injury and damage claims on behalf of children abused in state custody — at no upfront cost to you.

Behind the Statistics

The Human Cost Behind the Legal Battles

As shown in national analyses of child welfare failures, Maine operates on a system so overburdened and poorly maintained that it fails to secure timely permanency or protect children from sexual, physical, and emotional abuse.

Systemic failures represent part of a broader, national issue in this country. National data from Casey Family Programs shows the many harms the foster care system imposes on children, including educational neglect. Foster children are disproportionately likely to fall behind on education, with only 55%-56% graduating high school compared to over 83% of their statewide peers, and a mere 3% to 12% ever attaining a four-year college degree. Vulnerable foster youth that are left to grow up alone in institutional isolation face incessant trauma instead of strong family bonds and are thereby led into adulthood entirely unprotected.

As Dorothea Dix once said, “I come as the advocate of the helpless, forgotten… of beings sunk to a condition from which the most unconcerned would start with real horror.” When the state neglects and abuses foster children, the trauma inflicted upon their minds does not simply fade away; it leaves a permanent, devastating mark lasting a lifetime.