Hobbs Couldn’t Get New Childrens’ Department in Gear, Workers Say

Amid the clutter on an East Los Angeles social worker’s desk is a hand-lettered sign that reads, “Will Rogers never met Lola Hobbs.”

That piece of wry humor appears to sum up child abuse workers’ disillusionment with the first director of the new Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services, who was ousted Thursday by the Board of Supervisors after six months on the job.

Hobbs, a 47-year-old former San Diego welfare administrator, had been hired last September after a nationwide search. The agency she headed was formed after a Times investigation found that abused children, placed under county protection, were being abused again.

The new department was intended to consolidate fragmented services that had been handled by separate county agencies dealing with welfare, adoptions and probation. The children’s services agency was the first of its kind in the nation.

Raised Hopes

However, the new bureaucratic approach, which had raised the hopes of even some grizzled skeptics, changed nothing.

“It was like we had this beautiful big ship ready to sail, with a captain who couldn’t get the engine running,” said Clark Barton, a children’s services worker in Panorama City. “We’ve just drifted all these months.”

About a dozen administrators, supervisors and field workers interviewed Friday said they were disappointed at the lack of progress and relieved that Hobbs has left. They said, however, they fear that the system might take steps backward unless it is quickly stabilized by interim director Robert L. Chaffee, a 20-year administrator with the county Department of Public Social Services, who was appointed to oversee day-to-day operations by Chief Administrative Officer James C. Hankla.

Children’s services workers say the department never moved toward accomplishing its primary mission. Teams of social workers assigned to separate program--to place children with adoptive parents, to intervene on behalf of abused children and to deal with non-delinquent teen-age runaways--are still not working together, they said.

Exactly the Same

They said child abuse programs operate exactly the same as they did when they were part of the much-criticized Department of Public Social Services.

“There aren’t any tangible changes at MacLaren Children’s Center (the county’s sole public emergency shelter for abused and neglected children) or in the field,” said one top children’s services administrator who asked not to be named.

“We have a new department (more than 2,000 employees and a $121-million budget), but it hasn’t changed reality for any children,” the administrator said.

Employees said Hobbs was more concerned with show than substance. Staff members said she instructed them to put on a happy face in meetings with county officials and not to ask for budget increases. They said she forbade her managers to attend meetings of the newly created watchdog Children’s Services Commission and attempted to cope with staggering increases in child abuse reports by rejecting too many of them through a process she termed “assessment.”

They complained that under her stewardship, caseloads for social workers rose--60 children per worker is not unusual--because workers left as fast as others were hired. And they said supplies--even the forms they are required by law to complete--ran short, office space was cramped and morale was low.

Staff shortages have resulted in “overwhelmed” workers, they said, and in children being left in households where there is a high risk of being abused again.

They also said such children are not being visited by social workers as often as required by state law.

Even foster parents were not being paid on time, staff members said.

The workers said Hobbs had an abrasive personality that made enemies and she never visited some of her busiest outposts. She seemed uninterested in innovative solutions to the county’s child abuse problems, they said.

Move Forward

“We had a leader who wanted to go back to the old ways of DPSS (which formerly handled child abuse cases) while the new department, the (watchdog) commission and the majority of the Board of Supervisors wanted to go forward,” said one high-ranking department official, who also requested anonymity.

Hobbs agreed to resign in exchange for a payment of $37,300, about six months’ salary, only days after she insisted that she would not resign under any circumstances and was committed to heading the department.

She declined to be interviewed after her resignation. However, she told The Times last week: “I knew this would be a tough job, and it has been. I understood there would be lots of problems, and there are.”

Now some workers said they are concerned that events following Hobbs’ departure could jeopardize both the existence of the agency itself and the effectiveness of the 15-member citizens’ commission formed to keep tabs on the department.

Separate Identity

Chaffee, the interim director, comes from the welfare department, which has led some social workers to worry that the new agency will not only lose its hard-won separate identity but be at a disadvantage in current budget negotiations, in which the two departments must compete for funds.

Supervisors said they intend to re-evaluate the size and role of the commission, which frequently clashed with Hobbs.

“The commission is important to us,” said one children’s services manager. “This is the first time in my 21-year career that I see support for children’s programs in this county. That’s brand new.”

Social workers said the citizens’ group is valuable because its members are willing to work hard, speak their minds and have no vested interests in protecting the status quo.

The appointment of a second director for the department is expected to take from three to six months.

Candidates mentioned frequently include Carlos Sosa, former chief of Department of Public Social Services’ bureau of social services operations, whom Hobbs assigned to do community relations work in the new department, and Deputy Dist. Atty. Jean Matusinka, former head of the district attorney’s child abuse prosecution unit.