Image Credit: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout
By: Anita Wadhwani [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
Children taken from their homes as a result of abuse and neglect continue to be forced to sleep in state office buildings four years after the practice first drew widespread public condemnation, the Department of Children’s Services chief acknowledged to lawmakers on Tuesday.
Margie Quin, the department’s commissioner, faced sharply worded questioning by lawmakers on the House Finance, Ways and Means Committee in a regularly scheduled review of state agencies.
“As recently as May 2025 there’ve been reports of children sleeping in DCS offices statewide and it never stopped,” Rep. David Hawk, a Republican from Greeneville said.
“What care are they getting in DCS offices for their highly needy situations?” he asked.
Quin said children and teens with juvenile violations and those with higher medical and behavioral needs sometimes take days to assess for an appropriate placement, necessitating short stays in offices rather than foster homes or residential treatment facilities.
She defended the practice as providing similar levels of care to children taken into state custody as other settings.
“The services they are getting inside a DCS office are not dissimilar from what they are getting in a transitional home,” she said. “Obviously they’re not in a home. They’re not in a homelike setting and that is extraordinarily unfortunate.”
DCS made a decision three years ago to not put children in hotels and Airbnb’s are not an option, she said. “We don’t have any other houses, so they’re in an office.”
“We do take them every day to shower. We do take them to school. They do receive their education. We do employ behavioral health specialists. In some cases we have to bring security in the offices,” she said. “And there are case managers — most of the time there are two case managers with that child or with that youth —while they’re in the office.”
The department drew scrutiny four years ago for the then-widespread practice of putting children to bed for the night on the floors in caseworkers’ offices when the Tennessee Lookout published video of children asleep in one Tennessee office. Some of the children slept on bare floors with no pillows, blankets or other bedding.
Data on the number of children who continue to sleep on office floors was not immediately available.
Hawk, during Tuesday’s hearing, also demanded the department turn over information on the number of sexual assaults that have taken place in co-ed transitional settings such as the state offices and temporary homes that are operated by nonprofits, churches and other outside organizations.
“I have numerous instances of anecdotal information about sexual assaults taking place,” Hawk said, requesting that Quin provide him with the total number of sexual assaults committed against children in DCS custody since she assumed office.
Quin told lawmakers that the agency had made progress since she took over in September 2022.
More children have been placed with families and relatives over foster care with strangers thanks to a $32 million allocation from the legislature, she said.
Caseloads have dropped, but remain high in areas like Davidson County, where social workers juggle about 20 cases at a time. The best practice is 12, she noted.
Salary hikes approved for entry level caseworkers have curbed high turnover rates and staffing shortfalls. And the department is deploying more resources into homes to prevent the need for children coming into state custody.
“A successful turnaround is occurring at our agency,” she said.
