Katie A. v. Bonta, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

Executive Summary

Katie A. v. Bonta is a class action lawsuit that was filed in July 2002 against California’s State Departments of Health Care Services and Social Services (the state case), as well as Los Angeles County and its child welfare agency (the county case). It challenges California’s failure to provide home-based and community-based mental health services to children who are in or at risk of foster care. A settlement agreement was reached in the state case in 2011 while the county case (Katie A. v Los Angeles County) reached a separate settlement agreement. The settlement required the state to make “intensive care coordination, intensive home based services, and therapeutic foster care available to children on Medi-Cal with mental health needs, to enable them to stay in their own homes and communities.