FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 12, 2026
Nationally Recognized Child Welfare Law Firm Brings Fight for Oregon’s Foster Children to Portland — Justice for Kids® Opens New Office to Confront ODHS Failures, Abuse, and Systemic Neglect
Howard M. Talenfeld and Oregon Trial Attorney Justin Grosz Lead a Dedicated Legal Team Committed to Holding Oregon’s Broken Foster Care System Accountable for the Children It Has Failed
PORTLAND, Ore. — Across Oregon, thousands of children placed in state foster care have endured what no child should ever experience: sexual abuse at the hands of caregivers, physical violence in homes that were never properly vetted, nights spent sleeping on the floors of government offices, and transfers to out-of-state institutions where abuse went unchecked for years. These are not isolated incidents. They are the predictable outcomes of a child welfare system that has operated in crisis for more than a decade — and a system that has, in too many cases, escaped meaningful accountability.
That changes now. Justice for Kids®, a division of Kelley Kronenberg and one of the nation’s only law practices exclusively devoted to children harmed by government care systems, has officially expanded its operations to Oregon. With a new Portland office and a team that includes both national child welfare pioneer Howard M. Talenfeld and Oregon-licensed trial attorney Justin Grosz, Justice for Kids® is positioned to serve as the foremost Oregon child foster care abuse law firm fighting for the rights, safety, and futures of children throughout the Pacific Northwest.
The firm’s arrival in Oregon is not coincidental. It is a direct response to the overwhelming, documented evidence that Oregon’s Department of Human Services has failed — and continues to fail — the most vulnerable children in its care. Where government systems have fallen short, Justice for Kids® steps in. Where children have been silenced, the firm gives them a voice. And where agencies have avoided accountability, the firm’s attorneys pursue it relentlessly.
A System in Crisis: What Has Happened to Oregon’s Foster Children
To understand why Justice for Kids® has made Oregon a priority, one must first understand the depth and breadth of what has gone wrong inside the state’s child welfare system. The record is extensive, damning, and ongoing.
Beginning in 2016, a series of landmark class-action lawsuits began pulling back the curtain on conditions inside ODHS foster care. Wyatt B. v. Brown, the most sweeping of these cases, revealed that children were routinely being placed in dangerous homes, shuffled between unstable environments with little oversight, and — in some of the most alarming circumstances — left to sleep in ODHS offices, hotel rooms, and conference rooms because the agency had no appropriate placement available.
This practice, known as “hoteling,” became one of the defining scandals of Oregon’s child welfare history. Children as young as elementary school age spent nights in government buildings supervised by rotating staff who had no training in trauma-informed care. Teenagers — many already dealing with complex behavioral health needs, histories of abuse, or LGBTQ+ identities that made them harder to place — were especially vulnerable. Without consistent supervision or safe surroundings, these young people were at heightened risk of running away, being sexually exploited, or suffering additional abuse.
A second major lawsuit, A.B. v. Brown, exposed a parallel crisis: Oregon’s widespread practice of shipping foster children to residential treatment facilities in other states — facilities in Utah, Montana, Michigan, and elsewhere that had documented histories of abuse, improper physical restraints, seclusion rooms, overmedication, and staff misconduct. ODHS sent children to these programs not because they were the best option, but because the agency did not have sufficient placement resources at home. Children suffered for it.
A third lawsuit, D.B. v. Brown, drilled deeper into the hoteling crisis and documented the specific harms children experienced when ODHS could not find them placements: self-harm, sexual victimization, untreated mental health crises, and the profound psychological damage of being treated as a logistical problem rather than a child deserving of safety and love.
In 2022, Oregon reached a landmark settlement in Wyatt B. that required significant systemic reforms. But settlements do not automatically produce safe outcomes for children. Years of follow-up audits, investigative journalism, and independent oversight reports have made clear that many of the same conditions that gave rise to those lawsuits persist today — insufficient foster homes, burned-out caseworkers managing unmanageable caseloads, children being placed far from their families and communities, and a persistent inability to meet the specialized needs of children with disabilities or significant trauma histories.
As an established Portland child abuse law firm, Justice for Kids® has reviewed these patterns carefully. The firm understands that Oregon’s child welfare failures are not the result of individual bad actors alone. They are structural. They are systemic. And they require the kind of sustained, expert legal pressure that only a firm with deep roots in child welfare litigation can provide.
The Unique Dangers Facing Oregon Foster Children Today
Oregon presents a set of child welfare challenges that differ in important ways from those in larger states with more established foster care infrastructure. The state’s relatively small pool of licensed foster homes means ODHS frequently faces an impossible calculus: place a child in a home that is not the right fit, or place that child in a hotel, an office, or a program that was never designed for long-term care.
Children placed in emergency or crisis settings face a dramatically elevated risk of harm. Without consistent adult supervision, structured environments, or access to the mental health services they need, these children often experience worsening behavioral and emotional crises. Many run away. Some fall victim to trafficking. Others suffer additional physical or sexual abuse in settings where ODHS oversight is minimal or nonexistent.
The state’s children with disabilities face an even steeper set of obstacles. For children on the autism spectrum, those with intellectual disabilities, or those with complex psychiatric needs, appropriate placement is not simply a matter of finding an available home — it requires matching a child with caregivers who have the training, resources, and support to meet their needs. When ODHS fails to make that match, the consequences can include loss of critical therapies, deteriorating medical conditions, educational setbacks, and worsening behavioral crises that further limit placement options.
As a dedicated Portland Oregon child neglect law firm, Justice for Kids® has seen firsthand how these cascading failures compound over time. A child who enters foster care already traumatized can emerge from the system with far greater harm than they arrived with — not because harm was inevitable, but because the system that was supposed to protect them made decisions that were negligent, uninformed, or driven by bureaucratic convenience rather than the child’s best interest.
What Justice for Kids® Handles in Oregon
Justice for Kids® brings a comprehensive, experience-driven practice to Oregon that covers the full range of child welfare legal matters. The firm’s work is not limited to a single type of case or a single category of harm. Instead, the attorneys at Justice for Kids® approach each matter with a thorough understanding of ODHS processes, Oregon child welfare law, and the specific ways that institutional negligence manifests in the lives of real children.
Cases the firm handles in Oregon include:
- Foster Home Abuse and Physical Violence: When ODHS places a child in a home where they are beaten, choked, or subjected to cruel or degrading punishment — and particularly when prior warning signs were ignored — Justice for Kids® investigates the full chain of agency decision-making to build a comprehensive negligence case.
- Sexual Abuse and Exploitation in Care: Sexual abuse is among the most devastating harms a child can experience. When it occurs inside a foster home, group home, or residential facility under ODHS supervision, the agency and its contracted providers may bear legal responsibility for the harm. The firm investigates not only the abuse itself but the conditions — inadequate vetting, poor oversight, failure to act on reports — that allowed it to occur.
- Institutional Harm in Group Homes and Residential Programs: Children placed in congregate care settings — including residential treatment centers, psychiatric facilities, detention programs, and out-of-state institutions — often experience abuse, improper restraint, peer-on-peer violence, and denial of basic services. As a dedicated foster care child neglect law firm, Justice for Kids® knows how to hold both ODHS and the facility accountable when institutional negligence causes a child harm.
- Hoteling and Emergency Placement Harm: Children who spent nights in ODHS offices, hotels, or makeshift facilities without proper supervision may have legal claims arising from the harms they suffered during those placements. The firm reviews these cases carefully and evaluates ODHS’s decision-making at each stage.
- Civil Rights and Constitutional Claims: Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, foster children have constitutional rights that cannot be violated by government agencies. Claims may arise from unnecessary institutionalization, deliberate indifference to known dangers, failure to protect from foreseeable harm, excessive use of restraints, and discrimination against LGBTQ+ youth or children with disabilities.
- Children with Disabilities and Special Education Claims: When ODHS fails to coordinate with schools, ignores IEP or 504 Plan requirements, or places a child with disabilities in an environment that cannot meet their needs, the child may have claims grounded in both state and federal disability law. Justice for Kids® reviews the full picture of how ODHS and school systems interacted — or failed to — when a child was harmed.
- Adoption Disclosure Negligence and Misrepresentation: This is a deeply important and frequently misunderstood area of child welfare law. Many families who adopted children from ODHS or private foster care organizations were never told about those children’s prior diagnoses, trauma histories, or behavioral patterns. Children later diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, or conditions marked by sexual aggression were placed with families who had no idea what they were taking on — and no preparation for the challenges they would face.
As an experienced adoption disclosure negligence law firm, Justice for Kids® pursues claims against agencies that withheld critical information from adoptive families. The firm fights for increased adoption subsidies, damages for fraud and misrepresentation, and the financial resources that both the adoptive parents and the children themselves need to stabilize their families and access the treatment that could make a lasting difference. Adoption disruptions that could have been prevented represent yet another traumatic loss for children who have already suffered far too much. Justice for Kids® fights to prevent those disruptions — and to obtain justice when they occur.
The Attorneys Leading Oregon’s Fight for Children
Justice for Kids® brings exceptional legal talent to its Oregon practice, combining national child welfare expertise with deep, on-the-ground experience in Oregon courts and systems.
Howard M. Talenfeld is the founder of Justice for Kids® and one of the most respected child welfare advocates in the United States. Over the course of a distinguished career, Talenfeld has handled landmark class-action cases, complex civil rights litigation, and some of the most significant individual child welfare injury matters in the country. He is a tireless public advocate for children’s rights, serving on the Board of the Youth Law Center (ylc.org) — a national organization dedicated to systemic reform of child welfare and juvenile justice. His leadership ensures that Justice for Kids® operates not only as a litigation firm, but as a force for the broader reform of systems that fail children.
Justin Grosz brings the courtroom experience and Oregon-specific legal knowledge that makes the firm’s Portland practice immediately effective. A licensed Oregon attorney and Co-Business Unit Leader and Partner at Justice for Kids®, Grosz has tried more than 230 jury cases to verdict. His experience spans child welfare, foster care, residential treatment programs, and institutional settings, and his familiarity with ODHS procedures, Oregon’s dependency courts, and the state’s contracted provider network gives him a critical edge in building cases that deliver results for injured children and their families.
Together, Talenfeld and Grosz lead a team that is not merely competent, but genuinely committed — to every child, every family, and every case that comes through the door.
“Far too many Oregon children have been placed in dangerous situations by a system that had a legal and moral duty to protect them. Our firm exists to make sure those children are not forgotten — and that the agencies responsible for their harm are held fully accountable.” — Howard M. Talenfeld, Founder, Justice for Kids®
Serving All of Oregon — Not Just Portland
While Portland is home to the firm’s new Oregon office, the child welfare crisis in Oregon extends far beyond the city’s borders. ODHS operates across the entire state, and children in every county — urban, suburban, and rural — are affected by the same systemic failures that have drawn national attention to Oregon’s foster care system.
Justice for Kids® represents children and families in Portland, Salem, Eugene, Gresham, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Bend, Medford, Springfield, Corvallis, and communities throughout the state. Wherever a child in Oregon has been harmed by ODHS negligence or foster care abuse, the firm is prepared to help.
Who Should Reach Out to Justice for Kids®?
Justice for Kids® encourages contact from anyone who is concerned about the safety or welfare of a child in Oregon’s foster care system, including:
- Foster parents and kinship caregivers who witnessed or suspect abuse or neglect in a placement
- Biological parents whose children suffered harm while in ODHS custody
- Adoptive parents who were not provided accurate or complete information about a child’s background prior to finalization
- Attorneys, guardians ad litem, and court-appointed special advocates working on behalf of children in dependency proceedings
- Mental health professionals, educators, and social workers who have identified harm to a child in state care
- Former foster youth who experienced physical, sexual, or psychological abuse while in Oregon state custody
All initial consultations are completely free and confidential. Justice for Kids® handles cases on a contingency fee basis — families pay nothing unless the firm achieves a recovery on their behalf.
About Justice for Kids®
Justice for Kids® is a division of Kelley Kronenberg, one of Florida’s largest and most respected law firms. Justice for Kids® is among a very small number of law practices in the entire country that limits its representation exclusively to children harmed by government child welfare systems, foster care agencies, residential treatment facilities, disability programs, schools, and other institutions entrusted with children’s safety. The firm has a proven national record of securing substantial verdicts, settlements, and systemic reforms that improve outcomes not just for individual clients, but for the thousands of children who come after them.
When a government system fails a child, Justice for Kids® is the firm that answers.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Justice for Kids® | Howard M. Talenfeld 6500 S Macadam Ave., Suite 380 Portland, OR 97239 Phone: 754-888-KIDS (5437) Toll-Free: 844-4KIDLAW (844-454-3529) Email: help@justiceforkids.com Website: https://justiceforkids.com/where-we-protect-kids/oregon/
