County Foster Care Agency Draws Grand Jury Criticism

Orange County’s foster parents program is performing below par, with the Social Services Agency alienating some families who take foster children into their homes, the Orange County Grand Jury said Monday.

Although there have been some recent improvements in recruiting foster parents and in record keeping, the effectiveness of foster care in the county “is less than what could be expected, given the available resources,” the grand jury said.

“There is evidence that the (Social Services) Agency has not devoted enough effort in team building among foster parents,” the report said. “Unfortunately, in too many cases, the agency has alienated foster parents.”

The agency tends to cause “an adversarial relationship” with foster parents, the jury declared. The panel added that foster parents had complained that the agency sometimes withheld “critical information” from prospective foster parents for fear that they would not welcome children into their homes.

Foster parents care for children who have been removed from their natural parents, often because they have been physically, emotionally or sexually abused. The children are under the protection of the Social Services Agency.

Concerned over a drop in the number of foster homes in the county in recent years, sometimes because insurance required by foster parents had increased dramatically in cost, the county last year began a campaign to recruit more foster parents. The parents are generally paid $250 to $300 per month to care for the children.

“Recruitment has improved dramatically,” the grand jury said, but it added that the county must work to retain and train foster parents.

The grand jury issued 14 recommendations that it said would improve foster care, including a full-time foster parent ombudsman to report specific concerns of foster parents to Juvenile Court.