Hubzetta Williams, a Child Haven child development specialist, holds a baby Wednesday at the county home for neglected and abused children. Photo by John Locher. Tarrah Spurgeon, aunt of a 14-month-old boy who was fatally scalded in a foster home, speaks at a news conference Wednesday about the Oakland-based National Center for Youth Law's federal lawsuit against the Clark County Department of Family Services. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

An Oakland-based nonprofit filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday in federal court on behalf of abused and neglected children in Clark County, saying the county's child welfare system is in turmoil and puts children in danger instead of fulfilling the obligation to protect them.

"Instead of nurturing children, it is a system that helps to destroy them," said Bill Grimm, senior attorney for the National Center for Youth Law.

The center's lawsuit, which seeks to reform the child welfare system, names multiple defendants, including Gov. Kenny Guinn, the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services, the Clark County Department of Family Services and Clark County commissioners.

The lawsuit alleges the entire child welfare system is broken. It cites several examples, including a teen who was taken from his grandparent's house and placed back into the custody of his mother, who was selling crack in front of him and scavenged food for the teen in trash bins.

In another example, the Clark County Department of Family Services failed to investigate allegations of abuse in a foster home with more than five children, the lawsuit alleges. One of the children, a 14-month-old boy, was later scalded to death in the home, the lawsuit states.

Grimm called the Department of Family Services a "catastrophe" for children in the child welfare system because state and county officials are complacent about it.

The lawsuit alleges that the Department of Family Services places abused and neglected children in unsafe homes and overcrowded and understaffed facilities such as Child Haven; that it doesn't do proper investigations into allegations of abuse and neglect and therefore pulls children out of homes too often; that it fails to properly monitor foster parents and foster homes.

One of the most serious charges involves a 14-month-old foster child who died in a foster home on April 3, 2005.

Although identified as "Jerome" in the lawsuit, the child who died actually was named Jushai Akua Spurgeon and died in the North Las Vegas foster home of Sallye Jones-Johnson.

The lawsuit uses fictitious names for the children whose cases are cited.

Jushai and five of his siblings were removed from their home when their youngest sibling, identified as "King A," tested positive for drugs when he was born in December 2004.

All the siblings were placed in the same foster home except "King A," the lawsuit states.

Within a month of being placed in the home, Jones-Johnson began having difficulty caring for the children and, in February or March of 2005, asked the Department of Family Services to remove them.

After he saw bruises on his 14-month-old son, the boy's biological father reported that he suspected abuse in the foster home, the lawsuit states.

During a visit to the foster home, the children also told their biological father that their foster mother and her adopted daughter "mistreated" them and hit the 14-month-old, according to the lawsuit.

The Department of Family Services, however, never investigated the allegations, the lawsuit alleges.

On April 3, 2005, the foster mother left the children at home alone with her teenage adopted daughter and the 14-month-old was scalded to death, the lawsuit states.

At least two of the boy's siblings witnessed the scalding, according to the lawsuit.

"Although the children's father made multiple reports to DFS (Department of Family Services) of the abuse occurring in the Smith home, DFS did not investigate the reports, and let five children remain in the home until" Jushai "was tragically scalded to death," the lawsuit states.

Tarrah Spurgeon, Jushai's aunt who joined the lawsuit, said she hopes the civil action will move the Department of Family Services to reform its system.

"It's unacceptable when a child loses his life ... in a placement of a foster home," she said on Wednesday. "There are conditions there that should not be."

In another case, "Clark," who is now 17, was taken out of his grandparent's custody and placed back with his biological mother, who had a history of using and selling drugs, the lawsuit states.

It said that despite repeated attempts by the boy's grandparents to keep him in Las Vegas, authorities determined that he should live with his biological mother in Texas, even though the agency didn't check into the mother's living conditions.

The mother was on probation for burglary, was unemployed and didn't have suitable housing, the lawsuit states.

Clark and the grandparents reportedly had no say in the matter, and county officials sent him to Texas.

Once in Texas, he lived in filthy conditions and sometimes slept on the floor. His mother allegedly sold crack in front of him and dug through dumpsters for food because she used all her money for drugs, the suit states.

"It was horrible," the teen said by telephone earlier this week.

Grimm said he filed the lawsuit to ensure that the county allows children to have "a voice" in where they are placed, to make sure the state adequately funds child welfare services and to create services to keep children with their families when appropriate.

Grimm said he also wants improvements in training and support for workers, reduced caseloads for the staff and better mental health services for the children in the system.

Annie Uccelli, spokeswoman for the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the state's Division of Child and Family Services, said the state has received a copy of the lawsuit but wouldn't comment on it until officials review it and discuss it with their lawyers.

But a letter written Wednesday to Department of Family Services Director Tom Morton by Michael Willden, the director of the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, noted that "it is clear, the existing level of effort to correct system deficiencies is not adequate."

Willden wrote that the county needs to do several things, including providing the state with information on children who die within 24 hours, investigate other "serious incidents" that surfaced at Child Haven when state staff investigated the facility and step up recruitment and licensing for foster parents and homes.

Darryl Martin, assistant manager for Clark County, said he had briefly reviewed the lawsuit Wednesday but couldn't address the allegations in detail.

Martin said county officials are reforming the child welfare system and recently have started training staff on how to conduct investigations into abuse and neglect cases.

He also said the county's staff "never intentionally places children in dangerous or inappropriate settings."

Martin said county officials are reviewing all cases involving children under the age of 3 and will expand that to include children under 5 soon.

The lawsuit also focused on Child Haven and whether children thrive in such a setting.

The center has been criticized for the overcrowding at the facility. On Aug. 15, a 17-month-old boy, Joshua Sharp, died at the facility.

Martin said the county has pushed to recruit foster parents when Child Haven became overcrowded but the facility is sometimes the only option when there are no families to take kids.

"Is this the ideal location for them? No. The ideal location for them would be to keep them with their parents. Unfortunately, that can't always be the case," Martin said.

"The next best thing would be to be with a loving foster parent. When that can't happen, we're here for these children. Right now, we're it."

Child Haven had 128 children on Wednesday. In June, 205 children were at Child Haven, which is designed to house 84 children and 20 infants.

"We know we have problems, but we are actively addressing those issues," Martin said.

Steve George, spokesman for the governor's office, said his office hadn't had an opportunity to review the lawsuit on Wednesday.

The county may face other similar lawsuits in the future. A San Francisco-based nonprofit, the Youth Law Center, has been working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada to push for changes at the Department of Family Services.

Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said he hadn't seen the National Center for Youth Law's lawsuit on Wednesday and wanted to review it to see how it would affect the negotiations his groups are having with county officials.

"Given how badly broken the system is, it's not surprising that lawsuits are filed" Peck said.

August has been a particularly bad month for the Department of Family Services.

In early August a 7-month-old died while in a foster home.

Also, less than a week before 17-month-old Joshua Sharp died, the federal government had sent the state a letter saying conditions at Child Haven had worsened this year since it examined the facility in 2004.