Oldham County mom sues Kentucky child welfare officials over records request

A lawsuit against the state seeking records on child deaths and abuse has been assigned to Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd, whose previous rulings upheld public access to those records in similar cases brought by Kentucky newspapers. (Sarah Ladd/Kentucky Lantern)

An Oldham County mother has filed a lawsuit against Kentucky child welfare officials, alleging they violated the state’s open records law by failing to provide records relating to child deaths and serious injuries due to neglect and abuse.

Jennifer Mortenson, who has 12 children, six of them adopted, said she is looking into records to determine if there are gaps in Kentucky’s system when it comes to protecting children.

Although the Cabinet for Health and Family Services provided thousands of pages of documents, it did not fully comply with her request, failed to meet deadlines set by state law, provided incomplete records and extensively redacted the documents, according to the lawsuit filed Dec. 23 in Franklin Circuit Court.

“I’m not trying to make it difficult, but open records are what they are,” Mortenson, a longtime children’s advocate, said in an interview. “You are legally entitled to it.”

A spokeswoman for Health and Family Services responded that the office complied with Mortenson’s request and continued to do so on an ongoing basis, reviewing records for disclosure and redacting some information for privacy reasons.

“Following its commitment to transparency, the firm provided numerous records in response to the open records request and continually informed the requester of its ongoing review of the records and the time required to complete the review,” spokeswoman Beth Fisher said in an email. “At present, the firm has provided approximately 8,800 pages of documents with necessary redactions and is reviewing an additional 12,000 to 14,000 documents. »

As for potential gaps in child welfare, Fisher said the cabinet’s “top priority is the health and safety of the Kentuckians we serve — especially children — and we remain committed to doing this work transparently and in accordance with our state’s laws.”

Access to certain child protection records has been well established by the courts in recent years.

In 2016, after a seven-year legal battle with the Louisville Courier Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader, the state recognized that the records it keeps on child deaths and near-fatal injuries were public records. The firm settled the legal battle by agreeing to pay the newspapers nearly $700,000 in penalties and court costs.

The Todd County Standard, in a separate case, also won the right to obtain records relating to the 2011 death of a child in that county who was fatally beaten after the firm placed her in an adoptive home.

Particularly damaging were records from the case involving 9-year-old Amy Dye of Todd County. It became a symbol of systemic failures after documents released by the state showed that state social services officials ignored repeated allegations of abuse by teachers at his school.

No longer confidential

The firm argued for years that all such records were confidential, but ultimately agreed to comply with court rulings that cases in which a child dies or is near death from alleged abuse or neglect are subject to the public records law.

There have been about 200 or more cases per year in Kentucky in recent years.

An external panel that reviews all child deaths or serious injuries due to suspected abuse or neglect reported in its most recent annual report that it reviewed 70 child deaths and 149 near-deaths in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023. It reviewed 68 child deaths and 134 near-deaths the previous year.

Mortenson said she wanted more details on how the firm identifies and investigates such cases.

Mortenson said she and her husband, Matthew, became adoptive parents in 2016. (These parents provide temporary care to children in an effort to reunite them with their parents, but are willing to legally adopt.) She also helps run Hope’s Closet, which provides free clothing and other children’s items to foster, adoptive and kinship families.

She serves on the firm’s Council of Trusted Advisors, a group of people involved in the foster adoption system that recommends changes and identifies areas of concern.

Mortenson said she began requesting records in September 2025 of all child deaths and near-deaths due to abuse or neglect for 2024 and the first eight months of 2025, but she doesn’t think the cabinet is fully complying.

Mortenson’s lawsuit was assigned to Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd, whose previous rulings upheld public access to these documents in cases brought by newspapers starting in 2009.

Mortenson also filed a complaint with the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, raising concerns.

“Safe Care Plan”

Mortenson said she is increasingly concerned about several areas where she sees gaps in child protection and hopes to use that information to encourage lawmakers to strengthen laws.

One such area is how state social services staff oversee cases of newborns exposed to substances such as drugs or alcohol, including those born with neonatal abstinence syndrome — withdrawing from drugs, usually opioids, but often multiple substances.

Federal law requires state child welfare officials to create what is called a “safe care plan” for these newborns, intended to ensure the health and safety of the baby and to support the parents and guardians.

Yet an external panel that examined deaths and near-deaths of abused children in Kentucky last year found that in more than a third of examined cases of infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome, no trace of such a plan could be found. The Child Death and Near Death External Review Committee concluded that this was likely an “underestimate” of the number of newborns without such plans.

Although cases of infants born exposed to substances or going through drug withdrawal have steadily increased in recent years, his report found that the safety plan “is rarely available to most Kentucky families who sorely need it.” These infants are at greater risk of health problems as well as abuse and neglect, the report said.

The panel noted that last year was the second year in a row that it recommended improving the system to provide such safety plans for infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome, noting that they are at risk for health problems as well as injury and death from abuse and neglect.

“Year after year, the panel has demonstrated that these children are at serious risk of maltreatment,” the report states.

A state health office that tracks these births has seen a slight decrease in 2024 in the number of infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

In 2024, there were 741 cases of babies showing signs and symptoms of the syndrome, compared to 792 cases reported in 2023, according to the Kentucky Public Health Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome Reporting Registry 2025 annual report.

Among its recommendations: “Every infant, including those exposed prenatally to drugs or alcohol, should leave the hospital with an appropriate and safe plan of care. »

But Mortenson said she doesn’t believe that’s happening, based on the records she’s collected and reviewed so far.

Her complaint to the federal health agency says she believes safety plans are only documented in “a small percentage of cases” of newborns with neonatal abstinence syndrome. Her complaint states that this appears to result from a health provider’s failure to diagnose and report the illness to child welfare authorities, as well as the failure of Kentucky Child Protective Services (CPS) to investigate and follow up on all cases brought to its attention.

Cases “eliminated? »

Mortenson also said she was concerned that in many cases of child abuse and neglect, the perpetrators are not prosecuted. She also worries that child protective services are “discarding” too many reports of suspected abuse or neglect as not worthy of investigation, a concern also highlighted by the external committee in its most recent report.

“The exclusion of referrals to the CPS has been a concern addressed by the committee for many years and continues to be the most frequently identified area of ​​concern,” its report states.

The firm, which investigates and decides whether to substantiate suspicions of child abuse or neglect, says that while reports of suspected abuse have increased in recent years, evidence has “steadily declined” over the past five years.

In 2024, 127,342 suspected cases were reported while 43,668 were accepted for investigation – the rest were eliminated. Among them, 8,196 cases of abuse or neglect were confirmed, according to an annual government report.

Mortenson said she believes cases could fall through the cracks of a chronically overburdened and understaffed child welfare system.

Mortenson is not a lawyer but is representing herself in her open-record lawsuit. She also plans to contact state legislators and gain their support.

“My goal is to help identify gaps and promote legislation that will help protect children,” she said. “If I can help create some rules, maybe we can save lives.”