New Director to Take Reins at MacLaren

In the latest shake-up at MacLaren Children’s Center, a new director and assistant director will take over May 5, The Times has learned.

Helen Maxwell, 41, will become MacLaren’s eighth director in 10 years. Since last spring, she has held the No. 2 job at MacLaren, the sole public emergency shelter for abused and neglected children in Los Angeles County.

Previously, she worked for nine years with El Nido Services, a private child welfare agency that provides residential care and family services. Maxwell, who holds a master’s degree in social work and is viewed as “a clinician, not a bureaucrat,” also served as a member of a 1983 children’s services task force appointed by the Board of Supervisors to review gaps in the county’s child-abuse system.

Assistant Director

Replacing Maxwell as assistant director will be Mary Hayes, 42, currently executive assistant to Robert Chaffee, director of the Department of Children’s Services. Hayes, who also holds a master’s degree in social work, has worked in the county child welfare system since 1967, including brief stints at MacLaren as a cottage supervisor and a psychiatric social worker.

The administrative changes do not signal dissatisfaction with present Director Al May, department sources said, but rather a reshuffling necessitated by other personnel changes.

May, who during his one year at MacLaren has hired new staff, initiated training programs and welcomed help from the county Mental Health Department, has been named one of two operations division chiefs in the Department of Children’s Services. He will replace Carlos Sosa, who has been promoted to assistant director of the department, one of four such slots.

Conditions at the overcrowded facility, through which 5,000 children pass each year, have been “vastly” improved under May, Chaffee said in an interview last month. The daily population, jammed at around 300 a year ago, is generally below 250, a drop he attributed to new foster homes and better ties with group homes and other facilities.

Changes Noted

Chaffee said mental health representatives are beginning to conduct diagnostic studies of children at MacLaren and to work on special placements for those who need treatment. The staggering runaway problem has been nearly eliminated, he said. And the permanent staff has been increased to 288, decreasing the use of “as-needed” employees to a pool of 82; temporary workers used to outnumber the regulars, he said, a situation that made attempts at continuity and quality care difficult.