Children’s Services Department Scored by County Auditors

Too many abused or neglected children are being housed at Orange County’s new Orangewood home, in part because the Children’s Services Department isn’t doing enough to find foster homes, a study team has concluded.

The audit also criticized the county department for “fragmented services.”

For example, the auditors from the county administrative office said that as many as five social workers are assigned to each child taken from his or her home because of abuse or neglect.

“Neither the best interests of the child nor the court are served well by the current arrangement,” the report said. Courts determine whether children will be taken from their families and placed in county custody.

The Social Services Agency requested the audit of its Children’s Services Department last year. The Board of Supervisors will receive the report at its meeting Tuesday.

The report did not criticize Orangewood, the $7.5-million, 170-bed home that opened last June, but it did note that the home’s large population “makes it difficult for the staff to give adequate individual care to the children.”

“The shelter is disrupted by youths who have discovered that there is no mechanism to adequately discipline them,” the study said.

Average Stay Is 24 Days

In the year ending last July 31, 2,263 children were placed there, and the average length of stay was 24 days, according to Orangewood director William Steiner. But, he said, only a “small minority” of the children removed from their homes by the county are sent to Orangewood.

The audit proposes hiring a deputy director for public relations to find more foster families for emergency placements. It also suggests that more families would be available if the county dropped its requirement that a parent remain in the home all day and allow the children to attend day care.

The director of children’s services, Gene Howard, said his office was already implementing recommendations made by the auditors.

“The report noted we have an excellent staff, and if the staff is dedicated, you can take care of clerical problems or systems problems,” Howard said.

Insufficiency Cited

The report also said Orangewood, which replaced the county’s 68-bed Albert Sitton Home, will not be sufficient to meet the increased demand for shelter for neglected children that will arise in the future.

The county’s population growth and “the increase in reported incidents of child abuse, have created a series of crises for Children’s Services,” the report said.

The problem has been complicated by “the lack of alternatives to custody, the decrease in the number of foster care beds” and the fact that there is nowhere else to place some of the children, who range in age from 3 months to 17 years.

The audit also recommends that the department begin vocational training programs for the older children and work with troubled families to enable them to keep their children at home.