KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion Tuesday to protect children whose welfare are being investigated by the Department of Child and Family Services in response to the death of a 10-year-old boy.
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After the abuse and eventual death of Anthony Avalos, multiple agencies, programs and services who were involved in the case were put under review.
“Child welfare cases are incredibly intricate and sensitive,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Santa Clarita as part of the fifth district. “Now more than ever, we’re seeing increasingly complex problems as we try to serve these families.”
On June 26, the Board of Supervisors proposed Tuesday’s motion directing the Office of Child Protection to implement the recommendations as follows:
– Improve the skills of staff interviewing children;
– Retrain social workers on the proper use of Structured Decision Making tools;
– Increase collaboration between DCFS and law enforcement;
– Improve medical hub system to determine whether or not a child has suffered abuse;
– Improve investigation skills of social workers at the front end and beyond;
– Improve the capacity to assess needs and progress made throughout the span of the case; and
– Reduce social worker caseloads.
“We must be vigilant in the Antelope Valley and in every corner of our county,” said Barger. “We are responsible for the safety and wellbeing of these precious young lives.”
Related: Wilk Announces Department Of Child And Family Services Audit After Palmdale Boy’s Death
The Board of Supervisors also supported Assembly Bill 366, authored by Republican Assemblyman Tom Lackey, Republican Senator Scott Wilk and Republican Assemblyman Jay Obernolte.
The bill seeks to “authorize the disclosure of those (DCFS) confidential reports to a teacher or school administrator, but only for purposes of disclosing information about child abuse reports filed by that teacher or administrator.”
Existing law makes reports of child abuse or neglect confidential and only authorizes the disclosure of the reports to certain individuals or entities, according to the bill.
Supervisors noted that teachers are often the first to notice when a child is in need or danger.
“Encouraging a partnership between our educators and our social workers will be incredibly valuable,” said Barger.
The agencies are being directed to report back to the board in 90 days with updates or additional recommendations.
“This is an era of reform,” said Barger. “We will continue to better our practices, ensure the best for our families and relentlessly advocate for our children.”
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Well, it’s about time ! 2 other children in 2 separate incidents were killed because people in charge were brushing it under the rug. Social Service workers were too lazy to do anything that they had the power to do, even while the bruised children stood in front of them. The excuse that the child was “visiting relatives” just doesn’t hold water. When you show up and the child is nowhere to be found, the parents/guardians get arrested until the child is produced.
I’ve worked in child welfare for almost 40 years as an MSW with a clinical license in three states. I started my career as a direct services social worker and worked my way up to being an agency supervisor/director in both the private and public sector, including L.A. City and County. I’ve mentored and trained innumerable professional social workers and graduate students. I’ve also been hired as an expert witness in several states, including California. Here’s my two cents:
The Supervisors’ strategies noted above are, at best, a minimal response to this issue. The real issue that has plagued child welfare over the last 2 decades is the lack of leadership. These problems and negative child/family outcomes have nothing to do with caseloads or improving interviewing and investigation skills or using a tool correctly. The problem is all about leadership. We’ve turned the field of child welfare, the most difficult one in which to practice as a helping professional and social worker into a Polly-Anna endeavor by failing to hire professional social workers (not people with degrees in “related” fields). Social Workers are the only recognized subject matter experts in child welfare – not judges or lawyers or educators or public administrators or business professionals or psychologists, etc. etc. etc. To complicate this issue even further, we hire those into leadership positions that have failed in other public CW systems. We tend to recycle these “leadership” folks, even when they have a lackluster history or one marked by failure from their tenure in other public child welfare systems/states. The current LA County DCFS Director is a prime example. We’ve made this mistake as well in the Office of Child Protection by hiring a judge/lawyer rather than a professional Social Worker who has done the work and lead the work and who has been successful in achieving improved child and family outcomes by establishing competency based practice standards and holding subordinates accountable to those standards. Neither a judge/lawyer or any other professional possess the core competencies to do this work as those that social workers possess. Well trained, experienced and professional Social Workers understand the nuances and complexities of this work and what is needed to develop the required systems and responsiveness to support competency based practice in order to keep kids safe and families stable. Until these elected officials get a clue about these leadership issues, no recommendation or direction they dictate from above will solve the awful outcomes we’re experiencing for kids and families, including the entirely unacceptable rates of child fatalities in LA County, many of which could have been avoided had only real leaders been at the helm with the courage to do the right things to fix these failures. If we continue the course of hiring these “leaders” who are more interested in keeping their jobs rather than doing their jobs, more kids will die, fueling the futility of these elected officials’ attempts to appear concerned by issuing inane and less than effective dictates to solve the problem. Kids and families and taxpayers deserve better than this current model of incompetence.
DCFS wants to kill my child right now I need help today she turned 1 and my case worker and the ffa are emotionally and please I need HELP MY NAME IS LUIS LOPEZ SANTA CARLITA IS UP TO NO GOOD !!! WE NEED THE FBI
Hi my name is Luis Lopez I have been dealing with DCFS for 9 months and I have been switched 6 times and I am a father of the one-year-old name is Yesenia Lopez I have been fighting to try to get my daughter now I have 3 DCFS workers from Santa Clarita that want to press a restraining order on me because all the unlawful and non-complying and disrespect that DCF is doing not only on me my wife and my child are stressing. They don’t have no heart no compassion for anyone. This is very irresponsible the most disrespectful thing that I’ve ever been through. And I’m still here like a father trying to fight for my daughter which means the whole world to me. Is it their job to make me feel useless worthless and not only that everything’s supposed to be confidential and I have a DCFS workers trying to put me down name-calling and they’re trying to do their best to keep my one-year-old away. From what I have seen and I have been through you’re not trying to help! Not trying to help at all! Why! SMH