Foster care and group homes
New Jersey Foster Care and Group Home Abuse Lawyer
If you were sexually abused in foster care, in a group home, or in a residential facility in New Jersey, you can bring a civil claim about how you came to be placed there and what was done once concerns existed. That claim can be against the foster parent or staff member, against the private agency that arranged and supervised the placement, and in some circumstances against a public entity.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.
- NJ Bar No. 032141988Verifiable, and published here so you can check it
- 37 yearsAdmitted in New Jersey in 1989
- No fee unless you winCases are handled on contingency
- Free and confidentialNothing you say here commits you to anything
What makes people hesitate here
Survivors of abuse in care tend to carry a particular set of reasons for not asking, and they are worth answering plainly.
“I already told someone and it went nowhere.”
Telling a caseworker, a supervisor or a court-appointed advocate and watching nothing happen is one of the most frequent accounts in this area. It is also, in legal terms, one of the most useful facts a claim can have. A report that was received and not acted on establishes what the system knew. Child welfare agencies document heavily, and what you said is usually recorded somewhere.
“Nobody will take my word for it.”
Children in care are used to being disbelieved, and it is a reasonable expectation to carry into adulthood. These claims are not built on your word alone. They are built on placement histories, licensing files, complaint logs, inspection reports and internal correspondence that exist regardless of whether anyone believed you at the time.
“I cannot remember it clearly enough.”
Fragmented memory is characteristic of childhood trauma and of frequent moves between placements. You are not required to produce a sequential account, and reconstructing dates and locations is done from records.
“It was the state, and you cannot sue the state.”
New Jersey’s 2019 reform removed the standard government immunity protections for sexual abuse claims, which is what makes claims about state-arranged care possible at all. Many of these claims also involve private agencies contracted to recruit, license and supervise placements.
Can you bring a claim for abuse in foster care?
In many circumstances, yes. A civil claim is separate from any criminal case and does not depend on one having happened. It asks what the people responsible for your placement and supervision did and failed to do.
Who it is brought against depends on the structure of the placement. New Jersey’s child welfare system involves the state, private agencies contracted to carry out much of the work, licensed foster homes, and privately operated group and residential facilities. Working out which entity held which duty is part of the early work in these cases.
Who is legally responsible
- Negligent placement. Placing a child with a household or in a facility where a known risk existed, or where the most basic checks would have revealed one.
- Negligent licensing and approval. Approving a foster home or a facility without proper assessment, or renewing that approval after concerns had been raised.
- Negligent supervision of the placement. Visits not made, children not seen alone, required checks recorded as done when they were not.
- Failure to investigate a report. A disclosure made to a caseworker, a teacher, a therapist or a facility staff member and not passed on or not acted on.
- Negligent retention. Leaving a child in a placement after a concern, or moving a foster carer’s approval to another county or another agency.
- Failure to report. Caseworkers, facility staff, teachers and medical professionals are all mandatory reporters in New Jersey.
How institutions are held liable for sexual abuse in New Jersey
The settings these claims come from
- Licensed foster homes, including relative and kinship placements
- Group homes and congregate care
- Residential treatment centers and therapeutic placements
- Shelters and emergency placements
- Juvenile detention and secure facilities
- Facilities for children with disabilities
- Independent living and transitional programs
- Respite care
- Abuse by other children in a placement, where supervision failed
What tends to exist in the records
People assume nothing survives. In child welfare, a great deal does, because the system is built on documentation.
- Case files and caseworker contact notes
- Placement histories showing every move and the reason recorded for it
- Foster home licensing files, home studies and renewals
- Complaint and incident reports, and internal investigations
- Facility inspection and licensing records
- Court reports filed during the period you were in care
Obtaining these is done inside a claim. You should not need to request your own file to find out whether you can ask a question.
What to do now
- Keep anything you already hold, including court paperwork, letters, school records and any documents given to you when you left care.
- You do not need to request your own case file first. Obtaining records is work done inside a claim, and requesting them yourself can complicate it.
- Say so on the first call if siblings are still in care. It affects how and when things are done, and it is better raised at the start.
Emergency and hotline numbers, including the New Jersey child abuse hotline, are at the foot of every page on this site.
What a claim can recover
Typically the cost of counseling and treatment, past and future, the effect on education, housing stability and earnings, and the harm itself. Survivors of abuse in care frequently carry consequences that compound over years, and those are part of what a claim addresses.
There is no fee unless a claim succeeds, and no cost to asking whether you have one.
How long do you have to file in New Jersey?
If you were abused as a child, you can generally bring a civil claim in New Jersey until your 55th birthday, or within seven years of realizing that your injuries are connected to the abuse, whichever of those is later.
If you were an adult when the abuse happened, the period is generally seven years from the incident, or seven years from the point at which you connected the harm to it.
New Jersey also ran a two-year lookback window, from December 1, 2019 to November 30, 2021, during which claims that had already expired could be brought regardless of age. That window has closed. It is worth being clear about, because people hear that it closed and conclude they have missed everything, when the ordinary deadlines above are separate and often still leave years.
Which of these applies to you, and when your seven years started, depends on facts specific to you. A short confidential call will tell you where you actually stand.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.
Cases Joe has resolved
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$6.1 Million Recovery
for a woman who was sexually assaulted after being overserved alcohol.
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$4.5 Million Settlement
for a minor who was sexually abused as a student by a staff member at her public school.
Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstance. Every case turns on its own facts, and no result here predicts what any other case is worth.
Questions people ask
I told my caseworker at the time and nothing happened.
This is one of the most common accounts in these cases, and legally it is significant rather than futile. A report made and not acted on is evidence of knowledge, and child welfare systems are heavy record keepers. What you said is very often written down somewhere, even when nothing visible followed.
I moved between a lot of placements and cannot remember the order.
That is expected and it is not an obstacle. Placement histories are documented. Reconstructing where you were and when is work done inside a claim, from records rather than from memory.
Can I bring a claim against a state agency?
Yes. New Jersey's 2019 reform removed the standard government immunity protections for sexual abuse claims, which is precisely what makes claims about state-arranged care viable. Many of these claims also involve private agencies contracted to arrange and supervise placements.
I aged out of the system years ago.
Many people bringing these claims did. Abuse from years ago can still be actionable in New Jersey, and the fact that you have long since left care does not by itself close the question.
What if the abuse was by another child in the placement?
That can still be a claim. The question becomes what was known about the risk of placing you together and whether supervision was adequate. Peer abuse in group and residential settings is very often a placement and supervision failure.
I do not have any of my records.
Almost nobody does. Case files, placement histories, licensing records and internal reports are held by agencies and by the state, and obtaining them is part of the claim rather than something you need to do first.
Will bringing a claim affect siblings still in the system?
It is a fair question to raise directly on a first call, and it is one of several reasons the pace of these claims is set around the people in them. Nothing is filed without discussing what it means for your family.
If you are still reading
People usually read a page like this several times over several weeks before they contact anyone. That is normal, and there is no deadline on this page trying to push you. When you are ready, the call is free and it stays between you and Joe.
Free, confidential, and no obligation. You decide what happens next, and you can stop at any point.