MESA, AZ — A Valley mother's lawsuit against the Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) claims the agency was negligent in the care of her daughter, who was reported missing and sustained "life-altering injuries."
Jenell Jones filed the lawsuit in September 2025 against DCS and the state-licensed group home where her daughter was living in 2023. Jones listed her daughter as “Jane Doe” in the lawsuit to protect her identity; she is referred to here as Jane.
Jane was 16 years old when she was reported missing with two other foster children in November 2023.
"It was just a mess," Jones said. "It was an absolute nightmare."
According to police reports, Jane and two other girls hitchhiked 150 miles west to Quartzsite. A police officer reported finding all three girls at a truck stop four days after they disappeared.
“It was a relief to me,” Jones said. “I didn't think I was going to see her alive again.”
Jane explained to the officer that she consumed alcoholic beverages, had unprotected sex with a teen boy, and used marijuana, according to a Quartzsite police report. The officer called DCS to drive the kids back to the Valley.
“I'm assuming you're going to take my child to the hospital,” Jones said. “She has been gone, you know, for five days.”
Jane was examined at a hospital in Mesa the day after she was found. At that point, she reported she was raped by a teen boy in Quartzsite, according to police reports.
“What's really sad and devastating about the situation is when they start taking her clothes off, she's got choke marks, she's got bruises,” Jones said.
Jones said she and her husband adopted Jane when she was 8. As she grew into a teenager, her increasingly complicated behavioral health needs made it difficult for her to remain safely at home, according to the couple.
DCS became involved. Then, according to the Jones's lawsuit, "While awaiting placement in a behavioral health inpatient facility,” DCS placed Jane in a group home which “was not qualified or equipped to care for her needs.”
Jones’s lawsuit claims both DCS and the group home were negligent and should be responsible for the girl's "life-altering injuries as a result of the abuse she suffered.”
“If I don't sue - if I don't do something, policies aren't going to change,” Jones said. “Why do they get a pass when it comes to our most vulnerable population?”
In a court filing, the group home provider denied Jones’s allegations of negligence or breach of duty. The provider’s response said DCS placed the teen in the home temporarily and emphasized that the home was not a locked behavioral health facility. A lawyer for the group home provider declined to make any additional comments to ABC15.
DCS declined to comment directly on the lawsuit and has not filed a response in court.
However, DCS Director Kathryn Ptak spoke about the public criticism of DCS-licensed group homes.
“We also are putting them in a difficult position because we're giving them kids with a history of running away, and I don't want them to say, ‘Well, I'm not going to take this kid,’” Ptak said on KTAR’s The Mike Broomhead Show in January.
Ptak also said there is a shift in Arizona’s foster care population: from young children to more adolescents with increasingly complex behavioral health needs.
“They're coming into our system, which is designed to be a protective system to keep the children safe, but we are not the behavioral health system,” Ptak said in the KTAR interview. “We're having these kids with very high needs come in, and it's requiring a lot of coordination between us and behavioral health.”
According to Ptak, more than 30% of foster kids ages 12 to 17 have a diagnosed behavioral health condition. This year DCS plans to work to strengthen partnerships with behavioral and mental health systems, so more kids can access these services without DCS intervention.
Ptak said the vast majority of what DCS does is “really good work.”
Jane is now 19 years old and living in a home for seriously mentally ill adults. If they prevail in the lawsuit, Jones told ABC15 they will use the money toward the young woman’s care needs.
“If she doesn't have us, she's not going to make it,” Jones said.
Quartzsite police investigated the rape allegation, but ABC15 was unable to confirm whether the suspect, who was a juvenile at the time, was ever criminally charged.
Editor’s Note: ABC15 generally does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault. “Jane Doe” is a pseudonym used to protect the victim’s privacy.
