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Four-year-old Laila Sloan has blossomed in the care of her uncle and aunt, the only stable and loving parent figures she has ever known. But Oregon child welfare workers say its best for her to be removed from their care and adopted by her little brothers non-relative foster parents in Klamath Falls.

(courtesy of Angela Sloan)

Oregon's top child welfare official has ordered a 4-year-old girl be taken from her Kentucky home -- and the aunt and uncle she calls Mommy and Daddy -- to be adopted by a foster family in Klamath County.

The state issued its ruling in order to unite the girl with a toddler brother she has never met.

The wrenching case involving Laila Sloan pits two of the most basic tenets of child welfare, enshrined in Oregon law, against one another: Children, whenever possible, should be with their siblings. And children should be kept, whenever possible, with their parents or caregivers with whom they have formed strong, loving bonds.

The state's handling of those competing tenets has brought two families to a crossroads with lifelong consequences. Should Laila's brother have gone to live with her in Kentucky, where she has spent the last 20 months bonding with her aunt and uncle? Should Laila be brought back to Oregon to join the foster parents who have looked after her brother since his birth 17 months ago? Or should the courts separate the siblings into different families forever?

Child welfare officials say the best decision is to have Laila join her little brother in Oregon. Laila's attorney concurs.

James and Angela Sloan pose for a picture with their niece and foster daughter Laila Sloan. They have raised her since age 2, after James Sloan's brother was declared an unfit parent. They are distraught Oregon has ordered them to relinquish her. "I couldn't be any closer to a child even if I had given birth to her. She is my daughter," Angela Sloan says. "And I think she feels the same way toward me. I am the only mother figure she has ever known."

But that decision has left Laila's aunt and uncle, Angela and James Sloan, devastated by the prospect of losing her. Laila has lived with them in Kentucky since age 2, after she was taken from her neglectful and emotionally abusive parents.

The Sloans say the decision will traumatize the blue-eyed preschooler who speaks with a light Kentucky accent by tearing her from the only stable, loving home she has known. They have filed a court action to try to keep her with them.

Backed by a court order, however, Oregon child welfare officials have arranged for Laila to fly to Medford on Thursday, the Sloans say. She will live with her brother and the Klamath Falls couple raising him while the courts decide if they or the Sloans will be Laila's parents.

Laila doesn't know about any of this.

"I think she will be terrified and wondering, 'Why am I not with my mom and dad?'" Angela Sloan said Friday. "I wish I could protect her. I love her more than anything in this world."

Citing privacy issues, the state has kept the basis of its decision a secret – even from the Sloans. That adds to their frustration, the Sloans say, because they don't know why the state is taking Laila away and feel that much more helpless to stop it.

James Sloan says the once-fearful girl has thrived with them. She likes her Head Start classes. She plays outside, he said, and loves riding her scooter. Angela Sloan works as an emergency dispatcher for the state police, and her husband supervises dispatch operations for the county. They work opposite shifts so Laila can be with them as much as possible.

"This has been the most horrible nightmare," says Brenda Haskins, Laila's grandmother, who lives in Klamath Falls. "She will be devastated, devastated to be taken from Jamie and Angel," the names James and Angela are called by family and friends. "And why? So she can be with a little brother she doesn't even know?"

Barefoot and hungry

Laila Sloan was born in Washington, to a 28-year-old mother with petty criminal convictions mostly for drug and alcohol offenses, and her 32-year-old boyfriend, Justin Sloan, at times a meth user, according to court records and Haskins, who is Justin Sloan's mother. They were raising a 2-year-old boy from the mother's previous relationship.

When Laila was 1 ½, the family moved back to Klamath Falls, where Justin Sloan's sister and mother still lived. The family quickly got on child welfare workers' radar, and social service agencies tried to help, Haskins said.

But child welfare records show life was unsafe for Laila and her big brother: Justin Sloan would spend the rent money on drugs. He beat the children's mother in front of them. The family at times lived out of a car. The mother got caught up in her own needs and ignored the children's.

About six months into their time in Klamath Falls, the couple dropped off the children at Haskins' home with no particular plans for when they'd pick them up, Haskins said. It was November, but the children weren't wearing shoes, socks or coats and they acted, Haskins said, as if they were extremely hungry.

She called child welfare to report her own son as an unfit parent.

The children were placed in foster care. Klamath County caseworkers sought a more permanent foster care placement, preferably with relatives. Laila was 2 and her brother was 4. Justin Sloan's sister fostered them for months, with help from Haskins, but it wasn't a perfect fit.

James and Angela Sloan, meanwhile, were eager to welcome both children into their home. The couple were unable to have children of their own.

Laila Sloan, then 2, shown with her grandma, Brenda Haskins, a week before she moved to live with her paternal uncle and aunt.

It took time, however, to get all the paperwork finished, under an official interstate agreement that required Kentucky child welfare workers to carefully document the Sloans' fitness to care for the children and to assess the safety of their home.

It was August 2015 before Laila and her brother moved to Kentucky. Everyone involved, from caseworkers to Laila's father, thought it would be forever.

"When they sent them out here, it truly was the happiest day of my life," James Sloan said. "In my eyes, that was my family. I was in a position where I could take care of them. I can't really explain it more than that. It was the greatest feeling, it was a blessing."

A new life, a new brother

Both children had attachment issues, anxiety and other challenges due to being exposed to domestic violence, neglect and other harm for the first years of their lives, confidential juvenile court documents obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive show. Records note the Sloans were conscientious about getting the children to their appointments with therapists, psychiatrists, doctors and dentists.

The older half-brother was a particular challenge, showing violent outbursts and sometimes harming his sister. The Sloans sought help from child specialists in Kentucky and in Oregon to help the boy, whom they and others described as sweet tempered despite extreme emotional and mental health challenges.

Three months after the children arrived, their mother gave birth to another child, a baby boy, back in Klamath Falls.

He was born with meth in his system, confidential court records say. The newborn went straight into the welcoming arms of a childless married couple in Klamath Falls, foster parents who'd been recommended by members of the Sloan family.

In Kentucky, raising the older boy remained a challenge. About six months after the children moved in with the Sloans, a Kentucky psychotherapist recommended that the boy be put on stronger medication. She told the Sloans the boy would need to be hospitalized for observation and treatment while his medications were adjusted, according to the couple.

Richard Garbutt, a well-regarded Klamath Falls attorney who represents all three children, said in an interview this is the pivotal time that raised serious questions about the couple's fitness as parents.

Garbutt said James Sloan spit tobacco juice in the boy's face and that both Sloans treated the boy badly. He told The Oregonian/OregonLive all people from Eastern Kentucky are "related to each other." He said the Sloans wanted the boy locked up in a psychiatric ward and out of their lives.

Nothing in records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive, however, shows anything like that.

Kentucky officials who certified the Sloans to care for Laila and her brother were

Laila Sloan is a bright, happy child despite the two years of neglect and emotional abuse she faced at the start of her life, according to her grandma, Brenda Haskins. Haskins says it would be a travesty for the girl to be taken from the aunt and uncle who have given her love and stability.

asked to check again last July on the Sloans' suitability as parents. The officials there noted no concerns and issued approval for the Sloans to adopt. Teachers, neighbors, coworkers and counselors all wrote letters championing the Sloans as ideal adoptive parents for Laila.

Diana Bettles, an attorney representing the couple, said she hasn't seen any evidence to show that the Sloans are anything but fit parents. She got involved in the case only late last year and said she is not sure what Garbutt based his conclusions on.

Officials at the Oregon Department of Human Services, which oversees child welfare, said no one at the agency is permitted to discuss the case due to confidentiality and privacy issues as well as pending litigation.

The Sloans say they hospitalized Laila's older brother on doctors' recommendations. During his two-week stay in the children's unit of a Louisville psychiatric hospital, they called multiple times a day to check on him and made the 2 ½ hour drive to visit, they say.

At the end of that stay, the physician who treated the boy, then 5, commended the Sloans for their devotion. "Jamie and Angela Sloan have been extremely supportive and active in (the boy's) treatment," Dr. Sunil Chhibber wrote in the hospital discharge summary.

But Chhibber said the boy could no longer live with them, medical records show. "We do not recommend that he return to a home with his sister who appears to be a target for his behaviors or with any other younger children," Chhibber wrote.

The boy needed a structured, therapeutic setting, Chhibber concluded. The Sloans said they asked that he be placed in a therapeutic setting near them. But Oregon officials had already made arrangements for him to be flown straight from the hospital back to Oregon, the Sloans said.

When they found out, they bought expensive next-day airline tickets and flew to Oregon to see him and bring him his things.

Klamath caseworkers placed the boy in a series of specialized foster homes, but most of those placements were short-lived, according to child welfare records provided by Haskins, the children's grandmother.

The boy then went to a group home, records show, and later a Eugene-area residential center for children with extreme mental health problems. He remains there today.

The Sloans say they love him and would take him back in a heartbeat. The six months he lived with them was longer than any subsequent foster home placement that Oregon caseworkers arranged.

But mental health experts still say the boy, now 6, should not live in a home with a younger child or in any family setting.

Gaining independence, but not a little brother

Laila missed her older brother, the Sloans say. But she continued to thrive, improving with help from therapists, Head Start teachers and others in the Kentucky child welfare system. Laila had been extremely clingy, refusing to leave the presence of her uncle or aunt. But therapy helped her gain independence, and she cried less when dropped off at preschool. She even occasionally spent the night with her new "granny," Angela Sloan's mother, James Sloan said.

The Sloans and Haskins wondered why Laila's baby brother wasn't being relocated to be with his sister in Kentucky. Oregon rules say a child should be placed with relative caregivers, rather than non-relatives, if they are willing and qualified. And Oregon rules call for reuniting siblings whenever possible. Skype visits between Laila, then 3, and her months-old brother did nothing to truly connect them.

Haskins said officials in Klamath Falls told her the delay was primarily to give the baby's biological parents a real shot at connecting with him and potentially getting him back. But records show the birth parents had not gotten their act together. Neither showed up to see the baby. Justin Sloan was sometimes in jail. No one gave serious thought to reuniting the baby with them, records show.

Citing confidentiality rules, Oregon officials won't explain why they put off sending the young boy to live with his sister, aunt and uncle.

The official summary of a May 2016 review of the case shows that the Department of Human Services fully intended to have the Sloans adopt Laila and to place her younger brother with them for eventual adoption. Haskins, who was present during the review, was provided a copy of the record and shared it with The Oregonian/OregonLive.

The record refers to James and Angela Sloan by name as "adoptive parents for Laila." It also notes that, while the foster parents caring for the then 4-month-old brother "would like to be considered as a permanent" set of caregivers for the baby, an interstate agreement with Kentucky was "in progress" to enable Oregon to place the boy with his aunt, uncle and sister.

The volunteer citizen board that conducted that May review was largely content with how the children's cases were proceeding, but saw two problems needing immediate attention. The older brother needed his educational needs evaluated and met, they wrote. And the three children, all represented by Garbutt, needed "separate attorneys due to the apparent conflict of interest."

That never happened. The review board's field manager said assigning lawyers is the role of the court. Klamath County Circuit Judge Marci Adkisson said Klamath Defender Services, a nonprofit legal aid office, handles lawyer assignments. Garbutt said he helped create the nonprofit and works for it. He did not return calls Thursday or Friday to answer questions about why the children did not receive separate attorneys.

Looking forward to adopting their girl

Laila Sloan rides a camel at the Knoxville Zoo with the man she calls "Daddy," her uncle James Sloan. Sloan and his wife fully expected that Oregon officials' assurances they would be able to adopt the niece they have raised since age 2 were true.

Back in Kentucky, Laila grew closer to the people she calls Mommy and Daddy and more comfortable in her community.

James and Angela Sloan knew an adoption decision was pending and looked forward to Laila officially becoming their daughter. They had no clue that her younger brother's long stay with the Klamath Falls couple could jeopardize Laila's future.

Oregon has rules that govern how child welfare workers should deliberate when deciding whether to place a child such as Laila with a sibling: They should look at her current and lifelong needs, her emotional ties to her brother, and her ability to maintain lifetime ties to relatives. They also take into account what would give her continuity, familiarity, stability and permanency. Reuniting siblings is important, the rules say, but doing so should not override a child's best interests.

In November, the Sloans' world was turned upside down. They received a written notice that Oregon officials had decided against letting them adopt Laila. She would instead be adopted by the foster family caring for her toddler brother.

The Sloans were stunned.

Soon after, they learned of allegations that James Sloan had spit tobacco juice at Laila's older brother and that he had supposedly told Garbutt the couple didn't want the older boy. The Sloans were incredulous. Those were outright fabrications, they said.

The allegations so surprised and upset them, they said, they hired Bettles, the Klamath Falls lawyer who now represents them.

Laila Sloan loves playing outside, going on picnics, riding her scooter, playing Candy Lland and Shoots and Ladders, and being with the aunt and uncle she calls Mommy and Daddy. They are trying to gain the resolve to explain why she will be sent to live with a brother and caregivers she has never met.

With her help, they appealed Oregon's placement decision. The recommendation was ultimately up to Lena Alhusseini, Oregon's director of child welfare, who'd been in that position for about three months.

She convened a second hearing by a second placement committee, made up mostly of child welfare workers not directly tied to the case.

Neither the Sloans nor their lawyer were allowed to be present, as is standard practice. But they provided the committee the report from the licensed clinical social worker who observed and interviewed them and Laila on multiple occasions before writing that "it would be extremely detrimental to remove Laila from the home of James and Angela. For all intents and purposes, they are her parents and she is their daughter."

The hearing was conducted in secret. The Sloans only know the ultimate decision:

"I have carefully considered the recommendations and am selecting the Oregon family" to adopt both Laila and her little brother "as being in their long-term best interest," Alhusseini wrote.

"It is clear that you care about (the little brother) and Laila," she wrote. "Our agency values children maintaining ties with relatives when such connections are consistent with children's needs for safety, permanency and well-being."

She suggested a mediator might be able to help them maintain ties to Laila. But the girl, now nearly 4 ½, would have to leave Kentucky.

After The Oregonian/OregonLive pressed for Alhusseini to explain her decision, the Department of Human Services said in a statement it followed its own rules and relied in part on the potential adoptive parents' "knowledge, skills and abilities to meet the current and lifelong safety, permanency and well-being needs" of the children.

The statement also said that the Sloans could challenge the ruling in court, which they are doing.

In the couple's court filing, they say the state broke its own rules by failing to place the youngest sibling with his relatives. They cite the state's policy of giving preference to relative placements and the study showing Laila's strong attachment to James and Angela Sloan as reasons Laila should be adopted by them.

In their response, state officials question the accuracy of the Sloans' assertions. They deny, for instance, that they ever told the Sloans that they were going to be able to adopt Laila and her little brother or that they told the placement committee the Sloans didn't want the older half-brother. They said there was "substantial evidence" to support the decision to allow the Klamath Falls couple to adopt Laila and her little brother.

Marion County Circuit Judge Mary Mertens James could hear the case as early as this summer.

In the meantime, Angela and James Sloan are trying muster the strength to tell their little girl why she has to go away.

-- Betsy Hammond