Number of Livingston Parish children in foster care soars as addiction, neglect take toll

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State and local officials are sounding the alarm about a disturbing trend in Livingston Parish: The number of children entering foster care here has nearly doubled over the past four years to the highest per capita rate of any parish in the state.

Family court sessions drag late into the evenings. Services for drug addiction, mental health and parenting are falling woefully short. And the same people who were once foster children are cycling back through, now at risk of

Judges tell stories of a fifth-graders injected with methamphetamine and needles found in a child's playpen.

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With the rising numbers entering foster care, Livingston stands apart from its neighbors and the state. In Tangipahoa Parish, which is in the same DCFS administrative region, shares the same primary juvenile court judge and suffered severe flooding in 2016, just 130 children were taken into care last year, down from 156 in 2015.

Across Louisiana, the number of children entering care has fallen by 16 percent over the past four years, from 4,051 to 3,391, according to DCFS.

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