INDIANAPOLIS — On Sunday, families gathered outside the state capital to express the need for the Indiana Department of Child services to reform their policies.
Earlier this month, 5-year old Kinsleigh Welty passed away following a pattern of prolonged neglect.
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Police say Welty was kept in a closet that had small handprints of what appeared to be feces on the door. There was also soiled clothing and a strong smell of urine.
“She would be alive today, if they were to left her in my care,” explained Kinsleigh’s grandfather, Brian Welty. “And that's exactly where she should have been.”
Welty was joined by Kinsleigh’s great aunt, Carrie Hogan, and dozens of others outside of the state capital on Sunday afternoon demanding that the Indiana Department of Child Services change their policies and provide justice to families who have lost children after the state proceeded with the reunification process.
“(DCS) keeps putting these kids back into the custody of these abusers, and it's costing them their lives,” explained Hogan. “There's a long list of kids that the state has failed, and it's got to stop. This hit home.”
Hogan is joining a group of parents lobbying the state to write new legislation that she feels could’ve saved her great niece.
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“I am demanding change. And I'm not going to shut up and I'm not going to be quiet. And I'm going to be loud until that change happens. I'm not giving up," she said.
Kinsleigh’s grandfather did not feel his granddaughter should’ve been reunified with her birth mother. He says a labeling error by DCS made evidence inadmissible, allowing Kinsleigh to go back to her birth parents.
“I knew it was a matter of time. I knew it,” explained Welty. “When I got them kids in my hands, telling them ‘I’m going to keep you safe. I'm going to protect you’ and then 'Sorry, I gotta give them back to the state.' Yeah, that’s gut wrenching.”
Today, families at the statehouse were pleading for immediate change.
“We've got to get our legislators, our senators on board and start making up laws to protect these babies, these innocent lives who are given back over and over and over again.”
