A federal judge has granted preliminary approval for the settlement of a decades-long class-action lawsuit against D.C.’s Child and Family Services Agency.

Morgan Baskin was first to report the news.

The lawsuit (formerly LaShawn. A. v. Barry, now LaShawn A. v. Bowser) was filed in 1989 by a New York-based civil rights organization on behalf of children who were reportedly victims of abuse or neglect while under the watch of D.C.’s child welfare system. Federal judge Thomas F. Hogan has overseen the case over the course of the past 30 years and six different city mayors (including non-consecutive terms for then-Mayor Marion Barry).

According to the preliminary settlement’s court notice, the current terms of the proposed agreement requires CFSA to meet a slew of new obligations within two years of its approval, including developing a new psychiatric treatment facility for children in foster care, maintaining a contract with a mental health provider, limiting case loads for individual social workers, and issuing regular reports and assessments that will be available to the public. CFSA did not immediately return DCist’s request for comment.

The settlement would mark an end to decades of court monitoring by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, a nonprofit that Hogan tasked with overseeing the agency’s improvements in 1993.

In October 2019, the city had met 56 of the 80 “exit standards,” or metrics for improvement necessary to end the suit, which were previously outlined in a 2010 implementation plan.

However, later that year, Washington City Paper reported allegations from CFSA employees that the agency had exaggerated its successes and understated its shortcomings, citing overworked and under-supported case managers. CFSA claimed that it had largely resolved and was continuing to fix those issues. That same year, CFSA faced a shortage of foster parents — a deficit it planned to fix with 40 new beds over the course of a year. When the pandemic hit the D.C. area in 2020, the shortage and delays in foster-care placement within the agency left children and employees vulnerable to contracting the virus, according to Washington City Paper.

But the most recent notice claims that, by June 2020, the nonprofit CSSP found that the agency had met most of the remaining standards necessary to settle the suit. Plaintiffs will have an opportunity to dispute or speak on any terms of the proposed agreement in a fairness hearing scheduled for June 2021 before Hogan rules the suit officially closed. If he rules against settling, the terms and exit standards will remain active.