Six Adoption Caseworkers Go to Court : County Plan to Transfer Employees Hurts Program, They Claim

Six social workers in San Diego County’s adoption agency have filed suit in Superior Court in an attempt to stop their demotions and transfers, charging that they have been unfairly punished and that recent administrative changes are “decimating” the adoption program.

Superior Court Judge Arthur W. Jones issued a temporary restraining order Monday halting the transfers and demotions and scheduled an Aug. 15 hearing at which county Department of Social Services officials will be asked to prove that the planned personnel shake-up would not violate the employees’ rights.

Yuri Hoffman, an attorney for the six social workers, said that the employees are being punished for criticizing the department’s administration.

County officials declined to comment on the case.

The dispute apparently arose out of the department’s decision in March to spread the more highly trained social workers--known as “MSW staff” because they have master’s degrees in social work --throughout the department’s programs. The policy required that each unit be assigned one “senior MSW,” a department designation.

In adoptions, where all social workers had the MSW classification, the policy caused severe disruption, Hoffman said.

The most extreme example of this was the case of Grace Pena Blaszkowski, who was given four transfer notices within a 23-day period.

Blaszkowski, the suit said, was ordered transferred from adoptions to the family maintenance program effective July 19. But on July 18, Blaszkowski was told to report to the Nuestros Ninos adoption unit on Aug. 12. The next day, Blaszkowski was told again she would be transferred to family maintenance, this time effective Aug. 2. Finally, on July 31, she was ordered transferred to the Tayari adoption unit.

Blaszkowski accepted the transfer rather than take a demotion from “senior MSW.”

Of the other plaintiffs, Sharon Allen has resigned, Patricia Hosaka has accepted demotion, and Reginale Carter, Kathleen Murphy and Raquel Woodard have accepted transfers pending the outcome of employee grievances and the lawsuit.

Woodard was involved in a celebrated case two years ago when she was the caseworker for Harold Doerr, a 48-year-old homosexual who was allowed to adopt a 6-year-old boy in violation of department guidelines stating that adoption applicants should be heterosexual. The county unsuccessfully sued to stop the adoption after it learned of Doerr’s sexual orientation.

Efforts by department director Randall Bacon to discipline Woodard in connection with that case were dropped when it was discovered that violations of established adoption policy were widespread. Woodard’s supervisor at the time, Roger Essex, was given a disciplinary transfer for “failing to exercise reasonable supervisory control.”

In the current case, Woodard filed a six-page statement protesting her transfer and contending that the switch to a different caseworker would force her clients to suffer delays as long as six months in adopting a child or placing a child for adoption.