State May Take Over County Foster Care

A move is afoot in the Legislature to permit the state to step in and run the Los Angeles County foster care program, following reports that children are being physically and sexually mistreated.

Acting on a letter from the state Department of Social Services charging the county with consistent failure to protect foster children from substandard conditions and abuse, Assembly and Senate subcommittees have adopted budget language to allow the state to assume jurisdiction.

As an example, the letter cited instances in which 10 children were found sleeping on the floor of a garage and 20 infants were kept in 10 cribs.

“We have totally lost confidence in Los Angeles County’s ability to run the foster care program to protect the interests of these kids,” said Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the Health and Human Services subcommittee, on Thursday.

“We need a closer monitoring of these kids, who started out in life with the breaks against them, to see to it that things don’t get even worse for them.”

Friedman was particularly critical of Robert Chaffee, director of the County Department of Children’s Services. “He is a bureaucrat who indicated he is not willing to work with us on a solution to the problem,” Friedman charged.

Chaffee was not immediately available for comment, but in testimony before the subcommittee he called the state findings “not factual.”

The two subcommittees want the state Department of Social Services to take over the top management of the overall program. Los Angeles County case workers would continue to screen prospective foster parents and check up on foster home care.

If the budget language remains intact, the proposed move would occur 90 days after the adoption of the 1990-91 state budget--scheduled for sometime around July 1.

“We support the subcommittees’ action to take whatever steps are necessary to improve conditions in the foster care homes of Los Angeles County,” Kathleen Norris, deputy director of public affairs for the state Social Services Department, said Thursday.

In her February letter, director Linda S. McMahon, wrote: “The majority of (license) revocation cases sent to us from Los Angeles County involve sexual molestation, physical abuse or death of children in the care of foster parents. It is still typically six months to a year after the discovery of the incident before referral for legal action occurs. This is an unacceptable delay.”

McMahon asked Chaffee to come up with a plan by July 1 to correct the problems of his department.

Friedman said he believes the Legislature will approve the necessary budgetary language and Gov. George Deukmejian will leave it in the spending program because of the departmental endorsement.

Foster homes are operated by private citizens who are paid with public funds to care for children who have been declared wards of the court, usually because they have been abandoned.

Los Angeles County is paid $3.3 million a year by the state to license and monitor 3,800 foster homes that house more than 10,000 children.