The Alabama Supreme Court denied an appeal from the state Department of Human Resources to overturn a temporary restraining order obtained by a Madison foster care organization seeking to stop the state agency from removing foster care children from their homes.

The ruling is a victory for Kids to Love, who has been denied foster care referrals from DHR since June and is seeking a court ruling to undo that suspension.

The high court denied the DHR appeal on Wednesday with no dissent. One justice recused from the decision.

“The tragedy here today is there are over 6,000 kids in foster care and just 2,300 licensed foster homes,” Lee Marshall, founder and CEO of Kids to Love, said at a press conference Thursday. “DHR consistently recruits for more foster families. We have amazing foster families that have empty bedrooms that are just waiting to stand up and say, ‘We’ll welcome these children home.’

“This is 100 percent about the children being tokens in the middle of this, and the children are the ones that are suffering.”

In a statement to AL.com about the court’s ruling, DHR said, “There is ongoing litigation and another side of the story to tell.”

Kids to Love is a non-profit organization that certifies private foster care homes and facilitates private adoptions. County DHR offices refer children in need to agencies such as Kids to Love but that practice has been suspended since June due to what the state DHR said were “serious violations” of standards to be met by child placement agencies.

Kids to Love disputes that assertion and said repeated efforts to obtain more information about the concerns were largely ignored by DHR.

Kids to Love went to court Sept. 12 to ask for and received a temporary restraining order after the organization said DHR attempted to remove two children from a Kids to Love-licensed foster home.

“On Sept. 10, DHR attempted to remove two of the children that were placed in a Kids to Love foster home,” said Isabel Montoya-Minisee, an attorney for Kids to Love. “But stated to the foster family that if they would move their licensing from kids to love to DHR they would not remove the children. At that time, we filed for a temporary restraining order at the circuit court of Madison County.”

That account was included in the Kids to Love request for the temporary restraining order.

“(DHR) is currently attempting to remove two children from a Kids to Love foster home but offered to let the children remain with the family if they would become licensed through (DHR),” the temporary restraining order request stated. “This family, in particular, refuses to be licensed through (DHR) due to a previous negative experience so (DHR) will retraumatize these children by removing them from a safe and loving environment, that it has no safety concerns with, simply because (DHR) refuses to communicate with or offer Kids to Love a process by which the ban may be lifted.”

Montoya-Minisee said the next step is for Kids to Love to seek a permanent injunction against DHR that would lift the suspension on referrals. The case is being heard by Madison County Circuit Judge Donna Pate.

“That would look like lifting the suspension of referrals immediately, so that the county directors who want to work with the organization, who have still been calling to try to place children with our foster families, with (Kids to Love’s) Davidson Farms are free to do that and serve the children in their care,” Montoya-Minisee said. “That’s the first and foremost thing that we want done is the suspension of referrals to be lifted.

“Secondary, there have been allegations made that are misleading, that are untrue. And so we want a correction of all of that to the public and to whoever the statements have been made to that this organization has operated in nothing less than integrity in all operations. We have tort claims against these individuals in their individual capacities for knowingly violating policy and law by implementing this suspension on referrals.”

In an interview earlier this month with AL.com, Marshall said foster homes licensed by Kids to Love have 26 empty beds that could be filled with the lifting of the referral suspension.

When asked about those empty beds, DHR told AL.com that there are more than 500 available beds for foster children across the state.

“Not all children that enter custody are placed in a traditional foster home,” DHR told AL.com. “The individual needs of each child that enters care are taken into consideration when determining the level of care needed. Kids to Love does not provide homes for children and youth with exceptional needs.”