State May Seize County’s Abused Children Agency

“... the Legislature finds and declares that it has no confidence in the ability of the current management of the Los Angeles Department of Children’s Services to rectify the existing disastrous situation in the county or to ensure the safety of the abused and neglected children in its care.” --from the Supplemental Report of the state’s 1990 Budget Act.

When Robert L. Chaffee, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services, flew to Sacramento earlier this month to discuss a seemingly innocuous budget item with state Sen. Bill Greene, he had no idea his trip would trigger a bureaucratic tug-of-war for control of his agency.

Chaffee feared the item would cut the county’s funding, and he wanted Greene to strike it. Instead, the Democratic senator from Los Angeles launched a legislative inquiry into charges that Chaffee’s department is in such disarray it can no longer protect the county’s 50,000 abused and neglected children.

And so, rather than fighting budget provisions, Chaffee is now fighting a war of independence. The state Department of Social Services has already forced the county to surrender its authority to license foster homes. Now, with the backing of the Legislature, it may seize control of the entire $457-million county child welfare services system.

The dispute has once again put the spotlight on Los Angeles County’s checkered history of caring for its most vulnerable citizens: children who have been beaten, burned, starved, raped, abandoned or otherwise physically and emotionally battered by their parents or others with whom they live.

The state-county feud has been simmering for years. The Department of Social Services has spent nearly a decade complaining that Los Angeles County does not comply with state regulations. In fact, the county Department of Children’s Services--the first county agency in California devoted exclusively to children--was established in 1984 as the county’s answer to these complaints.

The department’s mission is to care for abused children and help reunite them with their families. From Chatsworth to Pomona, San Fernando to Long Beach, it supervises 3,800 foster homes, more than 200 group homes and a variety of emergency shelters. It offers drug and alcohol counseling for parents, treatment for young victims of sexual abuse, special medical services for seriously ill children, and also arranges adoptions.

In a complex urban center like Los Angeles, in an era of drug babies and children with AIDS, this is no easy task. But six years after its inception, critics say the fledgling agency has done little, if anything, to address the problems.

“It’s not organized and it’s not systematic and the more disorganized it is the more it becomes,” said Carol Shauffer, an attorney with San Francisco’s Youth Law Center, a public-interest law firm that represents children. “It’s like a snowball.”

During the last year alone, the county has paid $18 million in legal awards and settlements to children who were either physically or sexually abused while in its care. In one case, a 6-year-old boy suffered black eyes, puncture wounds, and cigarette burns on his genitals before his foster parents allegedly tried to drown him. He is now a paraplegic. In another, two sisters, ages 3 and 7, contracted gonorrhea when their foster father molested them.

The county is also embroiled in a class-action suit over its dismal record of providing children face-to-face visits with their social workers, which are required by the state to ensure a child’s well-being. The judge in the so-called Timothy J. case has recently appointed an outside referee--a child welfare expert from the University of Chicago--to help bring the county into line with state rules regarding visits.

Three weeks ago, the state seized 15 file cabinets full of county foster care records. State officials say the records show that the county repeatedly failed to take proper action against allegedly abusive foster parents and in some cases county workers continued to place children with such parents.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Greene, who chaired a recent public hearing on these issues. “I kept wondering, why are we just now finding out the level of severity of this problem? I’m not one that believes the state should run things because we are too far away. But Los Angeles County, at this point in time, should not run that program.”

Chaffee maintains that the state’s complaints are overblown and if anyone is at fault it is the state for not providing his department with enough money.

“I just want to tell you that the system in Los Angeles County is not in chaos,” he said. “These are normal conflicts and problems that anybody has running a program. This is hardly hanging offense stuff. In a large system like this, sure, you are going to have a few problems.”

His detractors say Chaffee’s attitude--that problems are to be expected--is itself a major problem. In a recent letter to the Board of Supervisors, the county Commission for Children’s Services, a 15-member advisory panel that oversees the department, suggested that “a major change in attitude and leadership” is necessary if the county is to keep local control of the department. “We need a change of management fast,” said Commissioner Stacey Winkler. “We need a child-oriented leader. We need a lack of arrogance.” The controversy has left the people who are served by the county department--particularly the 10,000 foster children and their foster parents--in a state of uncertainty. They wonder how they will be affected by state control of foster home licensing. Will the state impose restrictions that foster parents cannot meet? Will foster children, already victims of instability, be removed from one home and shuttled off to another?

“We feel terrible,” said Luz Silva, a Montebello foster parent. “Even the children are talking about it. They hear in the news, they see the newspapers, especially teen-agers, and they are losing confidence, you know, in the system.”

But state officials say the shake-up is necessary to prevent further harm to children like Marie, an 18-year-old who spent her childhood moving from one foster home to the next. Marie was molested by her foster father when she was 11; she sued the county and will receive $750,000 to $1 million under a structured settlement, according to her lawyer.

Marie said in an interview this week that the sexual abuse was not her only problem with the system. When she was 17, she said, her foster mother suggested that she find her own apartment and she supported herself on a $5-an-hour salary.

She should have been under foster care until she was 18 and was eligible for counseling and other benefits. But she did not even know the name of her social worker. The system, she said, lost track of her. As teams of state lawyers and foster care licensing investigators wade through county records, new allegations about cases like Marie’s are continuing to unfold. Based on a sampling of 100 cases, state officials estimate that they may revoke the licenses of up to 400 county foster homes, including some that currently may not be operating.

State officials say they already have confirmed at least two “politically sensitive” cases in which county investigators recommended revocation but were overturned by their superiors. Lawrence Bolton, assistant chief counsel for the state Department of Social Services, acknowledged that both cases involved physical and sexual abuse by foster parents who are leaders of local foster parent organizations.

Chaffee would not discuss the cases, saying only that his department is conducting a simultaneous review and would take appropriate disciplinary action if necessary.

Meanwhile, other county officials have questioned the state’s motivation in the dispute. They have suggested that the Department of Social Services is trying to make a political splash--perhaps because the state is also a defendant in the Timothy J. suit, perhaps to ensure that its top staff remains in place when a new governor takes office.

“I think there is an awful lot of politics going on,” said Beth Lowe, vice chair of the Commission for Children’s Services.

The county also complains that the state is to blame for years of serious understaffing in the ranks of the county social workers. They note that the county was unable to fill 440 social worker positions until last year, when the state allocated an additional $11.3 million. The vacancies accounted for one-third of all caseworker positions.

State funding is now based on the number of cases the county handles. Last year, with the county continuing to complain that it did not have enough money, state officials conducted a caseload audit.

In sampling more than 4,000 cases, the state found that 14% should have counted as part of the caseload. Some cases were listed twice, and in other cases, children who live out of state were listed.

Legislative analysts then wrote a provision in the 1990 budget that said state funding should be based on the state caseload figures, not the county’s higher figures. That meant the county would receive less money--and it prompted Chaffee’s June 1 visit with Sen. Greene.

But the visit backfired when Chaffee raised questions about the audit.

A day later, legislative analysts briefed Greene on the state’s long dispute with the county. Then the senator, outraged, ordered a public hearing.

Out of that daylong session came the Legislature’s no-confidence declaration, as well as an order for the state to immediately revoke the county’s licensing authority and to prepare to take over the entire system.

The budget--which still must be signed into law by Gov. George Deukmejian--gives the county until Oct. 1 to present the state with a detailed plan for complying with state law. If state officials are not satisfied, they will move in. Meanwhile, the county Board of Supervisors has said it will fight to keep local control.

There is division among child advocates over whether state control would actually improve county services, and everyone involved--even state officials--believes that local leadership is ultimately best.

“If there is any way for the county to get its act together that is certainly preferable to us taking it over,” said Loren Suter, deputy director of the state Department of Social Services. “The question is, are they going to do that?”