Shining a Light into the Dark Closet of Family Court

The biggest obstacle to improving the child protection system in Kentucky is the secrecy that hides the truth from public scrutiny and shields officials from accountability.

But one courageous and outraged Family Court Judge in Jefferson County has ripped the shutters off the windows, kicked the door open and given us a look at how the system really treats Kentucky's most abused and neglected children.

The teenage girl's relatives had abandoned her at an emergency shelter before leaving the state, announcing they no longer wanted her.

But what has Judge Joan Byer really angry on this day in Jefferson Family Court, as she reviews the file of this quiet, dark-haired girl before her, is a letter from a social worker with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, saying the state was closing the girl's case because she had been placed successfully with relatives and was attending school regularly.

Neither was true, Byer points out — the placement with relatives lasted barely two months, and Byer's own check of the teen's school records shows she has missed school repeatedly.

“We're going to lose a child,” says Byer, who blames such lapses on an overloaded social service system and intense pressure on workers to close cases.

Family “dependency” court cases involving child abuse and neglect in Kentucky are, by state law, confidential, and such proceedings seldom receive any public notice.

But in recent months Byer, one of 10 Jefferson County Family Court judges, allowed The Courier-Journal to observe cases, with permission of the parties in the courtroom, as long as children and families weren't identified. Byer said she exercised her discretion to do that because she believes, in most cases, the courts should be open and the public needs to understand what's going on with child welfare.

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