Sex Abuse Treatment Program Wins Temporary Reprieve

Under pressure from all sides, closure of the county’s much-praised sexual abuse treatment units has been postponed until at least August and may get a longer reprieve depending on the outcome of county budget hearings now under way.

The Central Los Angeles Sex Abuse Unit and the Child Sexual Abuse Program in East Los Angeles employ only 11 children’s services workers but provide court-ordered treatment to an average of 800 parents and children each week by utilizing trained volunteers, graduate social work students and members of Parents United, a self-help organization of 63 groups that meet throughout Los Angeles County.

Closing the sexual abuse treatment units would be a severe setback for Parents United because the group cannot operate legally without a sponsoring agency, officials say. Many victims and perpetrators say there is no other place to turn for understanding and help.

Program Praised

The $1.2-million program, which won accolades for its effectiveness during the past decade, had been ordered closed July 7 by Robert Chaffee, director of the Department of Children’s Services. In addition to treating molesters, spouses of abusing parents and sexual abuse victims, the program is used to train other social workers in how to recognize and handle sexual abuse cases.

Chaffee earlier this month informed the county Board of Supervisors and the presiding judge of the Juvenile Court that he felt forced to disband the units “due to budget constraints that my department is facing.” Chaffee told supervisors he had stopped accepting new referrals and intended to reassign the staffs to case-carrying duties. “It’s strictly a fiscal issue,” he said. “It’s a service everyone commends.”

This week, Chaffee said he agreed to delay the closures at the request of Supervisor Ed Edelman.

Chaffee’s reversal came after protests by child molesters who contend they had been helped by the counseling, families who say they have been kept intact or reunited by the program, individual social workers, the union that represents social workers, the Children’s Services Commission, Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Paul Boland and numerous others. The protests were lodged in petitions, letters and telephone calls.

Chaffee said in an interview with The Times this week, however, that “there is a lot of misunderstanding out there” and emphasized that no family needing treatment will be denied it, regardless of ability to pay.

In the event the units are closed, Chaffee said some clients would be referred to free treatment facilities and others to private counselors paid by the department. If existing facilities cannot handle the influx, Chaffee said, he will consider assigning some caseworkers to part-time treatment duties. He said that referring families to outside counseling would be cheaper than funding the specialized units.

Closure Would Be ‘Tragic’

Others are less sanguine, saying a decision to close the units is likely to result in more family disruptions, more children languishing in foster care and, in the long run, higher costs.

Superior Court Judge Paul Boland, who oversees the Dependency Court, called the proposed closure of the units “tragic” and said it “would profoundly impact the court’s handling of the cases and the progress of families in resolving the problems which underlie the sexual abuse.”

Judges frequently order perpetrators to participate in a sexual abuse treatment program but leave it up to the Department of Children’s Services to make the appropriate referrals. The therapists, through children’s services workers, make periodic reports that enable the judges to monitor family progress, Boland said, and determine when it is safe for a molesting parent to return home.

Noting that the scarcity of treatment facilities had prompted the formation of the special units, Boland predicted that “it will be more difficult for the court to release children back into the parental home because the family will be less likely to be involved in a treatment program.”

“It may be that the savings which will result from the closures will be exceeded by the cost of foster care. . . . Not only are (the treatment units) critical in terms of providing assurance to the court that a child can be released back to the family with a safety net in place to decrease the risk of further abuse . . . they are critical in rehabilitating families and enabling them to be reunited permanently and in a safe fashion.”

Helen Kleinberg, vice chairwoman of the Children’s Services Commission, said the advisory group has asked the Board of Supervisors not to allow the programs to be curtailed. “This is one of the few programs within the department that is actually working, and everyone agrees there is no reason to tear it apart,” she said. “Any patchwork Mr. Chaffee is going to put together is not going to equal what he’s got.”

Chaffee said his department expects to receive more than $3 million in state, federal and county funds this fiscal year to deal with an estimated 120,000 children. He said he expects to hire an additional 200 children’s services workers by fall but still needs every worker he can pull from other programs to lighten increasingly heavy caseloads.