Trial over foster care payments to begin

SCRANTON – The civil trial of a woman who claims Luzerne County Children and Youth wrongly denied her foster care payments for caring for her sister’s four children is scheduled to begin today in federal court.

Odetta Todd of Wilkes-Barre is seeking $196,000 in back payments she claims she is owed, as well as unspecified damages for mental stress and attorneys fees.

Todd sued the agency in 2004, claiming officials wrongly denied her “kinship care” payments -- foster care payments that are made to persons who take custody of the children of a relative.

Todd first sought the payments in 1998, when she began caring for two of her sister, Tamu’s, children based on Tamu’s troubles with drug addiction, according to the suit. Odetta Todd later gained custody of two more of Tamu’s children after she was imprisoned on drug charges.

Children and Youth provides payment to kinship caregivers, but requires that they complete the same training and application process as other foster parents who are not related to the child they take in.

In Todd’s case, attorneys for Children and Youth maintain she was ineligible because she failed to complete the application process, including failing to sign an authorization to allow the agency to conduct a criminal background check on her.

The key issue at trial revolves around the question of whether the agency’s determination of her ineligibility constituted an official denial of her application.

Under state law, child welfare agencies are required to notify a kinship caregiver why their application was denied and to advise them of their right to appeal.

Todd alleges she was never notified of her right to appeal in violation of her right to due process. The agency contends that because Todd abandoned the application process, she is not entitled to any due-process protection.

The agency also disputes the amount of money Todd would be owed should she prevail on the due-process claim. Todd alleges she is owed payments since her application date, whereas Children and Youth says she would be owed only two years worth of payments.