Child welfare system under scrutiny

Shocked that 14 children died of abuse or neglect last year even after social workers had looked into their situations, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday called for a comprehensive investigation of the county's child welfare system.

[Me and Marley]

DCFS suffers from the same disease LAUSD does. The uneducated, poor, non-tax paying except sales taxes, illegally living here, are using and abusing the services provided. Just as classroom sizes are 35+ students, case workers have at times 30+ cases, and most are the Spanish speaking ones. (This is a statical fact). Solve the illegal problem.... and you solve most to America's problems.

[Concerned citizen]

Me and Marley wrote:

DCFS suffers from the same disease LAUSD does. The uneducated, poor, non-tax paying except sales taxes, illegally living here, are using and abusing the services provided. Just as classroom sizes are 35+ students, case workers have at times 30+ cases, and most are the Spanish speaking ones.(This is a statical fact). Solve the illegal problem.... and you solve most to America's problems.

The problem has nothing with people being illegal. The problem is that there are a lot of parents that should not be parents. Social workers can't find out much information about a family in one visit. DCFS has the same amount of investiations in English as in Spanish. And yes social workers are overworked with lots of cases.

[Laura]

Incompetent bureaucrats!

[Mark]

And this surprises you how?!!! This is Los Angeles...in California...It's like the fox watching the hen house...

[Me and Marley]

"The problem has nothing with people being illegal. The problem is that there are a lot of parents that should not be parents. Social workers can't find out much information about a family in one visit. DCFS has the same amount of investiations in English as in Spanish. And yes social workers are overworked with lots of cases."

I agree with you in that many people should not be parents. If you do some research you'll see that within the DCFS system the English speaking cases are falling, and the Spanish speaking ones keep going up. I'm sure some of those are people born here, but would bet most are not. If we eliminated just that alone, the money spent would be cut drastically. So many living in LA have no idea how the gang and illegal immigration problems affect DCFS. Millions are flushed each day into a system that does NOT work.

[an affected parent - -]

I don't even want to get started on details with this as I was 'reamed' by CPS up in Santa Cruz County. In my opinion, they don't care about the children: they care about their wallets.. My children & I were all lied to from 'our' CPS worker regarding different issues: they would set up visits, not inform me & then when I didn't show they would tell my children that I obviously didn't care & I remember on one specific occasion when it was cold & ouring down rain, I informed my worker I didn't want my children brought out in that weather because I didn't want them getting sick: they informed me that the kids would be there whether I was or not. Needless to say I went.
Anyway - back to the story - I believe the workers are too busy 'doing lunch' to do actual proper visits: another instance is when I reported that the foster parents were transporting my infant daughter in a broken seat: when confronted on it they simply said that they had a new one, they just hadn't gotten around to changing it yet: and the CPS worker SAW the foster mom USING the broken seat! I really don't think the majority of them care. I believe there might be a few out there but not near enough to make a difference... and a lot of times the kids are actually better off WITH the parents if this is gonna keep happening... and did they say 12 deaths was 'AVERAGE'?!?!?

ps - I'm in Hollister - San Benito county - California...

[Concerned citizen]

Me and Marley wrote:

"The problem has nothing with people being illegal. The problem is that there are a lot of parents that should not be parents. Social workers can't find out much information about a family in one visit. DCFS has the same amount of investiations in English as in Spanish. And yes social workers are overworked with lots of cases."
I agree with you in that many people should not be parents. If you do some research you'll see that within the DCFS system the English speaking cases are falling, and the Spanish speaking ones keep going up. I'm sure some of those are people born here, but would bet most are not. If we eliminated just that alone, the money spent would be cut drastically. So many living in LA have no idea how the gang and illegal immigration problems affect DCFS. Millions are flushed each day into a system that does NOT work.

I was wondering where you got your statistics stating that English referrals are going down and Spanish going up. Referrals being called to the CPH has nothing to do with people being immigrants. The statistics varies each month for spanish referrals as well as English. With this economy crisis the department is seeing more referrals involving drugs and domestic violence. These issues involve all nationalities.

[kaylittlesister]

i dont live in california but i agree completely the system is totally messed up im still emotionally distraut after losing nine of my children to the system which a bunch of lies where told every day is a struggle i go on until i pass away

[Lynn]

I've been a social worker for quite some time and I have seen the number of Spanish speaking referrals raise dramatically over the years. This however, is not the problem. The problem is a DCFS hierarchy and Board of Supervisor's ignorance of what is entailed in a child abuse investigation, and new referrals that keep coming in while older referrals take a back seat. When a social worker detains a child, that worker loses anywhere from 1 to 3 days in their ability to investigate the other referrals assigned to them. We get only one day without being given a new referral. We get limited assistance in placement, may have to drive children 50 miles or more to a placement found by command post, and, must fill out 10 to 20 forms before they can even get in their car to deliver their charges to the placement. In addition to this they have a court report due one to 2 days after the detention, and, they are responsible for looking up all the prior history on the family, which may be considerable, and, old, which means nothing but a disposition can be found on our computer system, if that. Our supervisors help us very little and our clerical staff are too busy playing card games on their computers when they aren't busy telling us that it's not their job..In addition to this, we are given a 52 point check list of things to do, which we must do on our own, prior to closing a referral. Since this most recent rash of child deaths, we are now responsible for pulling up parents criminal records and history, and, based on the information provided, penalize the parent for historical reports of child abuse, and, historical criminal convictions, despite the allegations presently being made. We are detaining more and more children simply because a computer generated program tells us to "promote to a case". And, if we don't, and, a child dies, one year, 2 years, 5 years down the road, despite any new circumstances in the family we are put on desk duty. It seems to me that no one out there, whether it be the general public, our head of department or the board of supervisors realizes that our job is virtually impossible to do in the time we have to do it. I work anywhere from 10 to 15 hours a day in the field, in the office and after hours at my home and I still can't keep up. And I'm considered a "good worker". So, I invite our critics, the Board of Supervisor" and the media, to walk in our shoes, not for a day, but for one full month, and see if you can do our job!