Judge Orders DCS To Provide Child Death Records

More information about the deaths of children who were known to the Tennessee Department of Children's Services must be made public, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Davidson County Chancery Court Judge Carol McCoy ordered DCS to release copies of the forms its employees fill out when a child dies.

Those forms will provide more information than DCS has so far provided to The Tennessean, the judge wrote, including more about the cause of death, the department's prior involvement with children, results of prior contact and services provided to the children who later died.

"DCS has a statutory duty to provide the non-confidential information as an essential function and integral part of its routine duties," McCoy wrote in a 27-page order.