Ombudsman Will Review Child Services Disputes : Families: Supervisors agree to appoint ombudsman following complaints that social workers are splitting families without sufficient grounds.

Reacting to a wave of complaints that Child Protective Services social workers are splitting up families despite inadequate or erroneous evidence of child abuse, county supervisors Tuesday agreed to appoint an ombudsman to hear parent grievances against the agency.

Envisioned as an impartial referee from outside the county Department of Social Services, the ombudsman will evaluate parents’ disputes with social workers and report back to the Board of Supervisors.

But the ombudsman--which may end up as a full panel of officials when supervisors finish plans in March--will have no power to intervene in the judicial process. That process determines children’s fates and whether criminal actions are brought against accused child abusers and molesters.

“Government can become very big, very powerful . . . unless there is some way to allow a question to be asked that is legitimate,” said Supervisor Susan Golding, who proposed establishing the outside review process.

Government agencies have launched three separate reviews of the Child Protective Services, prompted by a groundswell of complaints from parents that overzealous social workers are unfairly snatching children from homes without adequate proof of abuse.

The county Grand Jury, the Juvenile Justice Commission and Chief Administrative Officer Norman Hickey’s office are all separately reviewing aspects of whether Child Protective Services workers have gone overboard in attempting to protect children.

Local and national experts estimate that 5% to 10% of child abuse diagnoses may be inaccurate, according to Golding’s report.

The supervisors took no action on two other Golding proposals to create a review process for employees who are the targets of three or more legitimate complaints and to establish better guidelines for screening anonymous calls reporting child abuse.

Golding said in a report that she is convinced that false, anonymous complaints of child abuse are being used as harassment in divorces or neighborhood disputes.

Tuesday’s 5-0 vote followed a sometimes emotional hearing at which some parents described long-term separations from their children, situations they said they were sometimes powerless to change.

“These people are out of control, as all people become out of control when they amass power that is unsupervised,” Clayton Blehm of Escondido said, adding that his child care center was shut down for a zoning violation. He called the child protective system “totalitarian, fascist in the truest sense of the word.”

Her voice cracking with emotion, a woman named Julie, who declined to give her last name, said that it has been seven months since she has seen her young son, who was taken away from her because of a false claim of molestation that grew out of a custody battle with her ex-husband.

“I don’t want a witch hunt of social workers,” she testified. “I’ve had bad social workers, I’ve had good social workers.”

A Lakeside man said that social workers are “allowed to operate as they choose, answering to one one, ignoring the laws and individuals’ rights. We need help and only you can give it,” he told the supervisors.

Richard W. Jacobsen Jr., director of the county Social Services Department, told the supervisors that Child Protective Services social workers cannot keep a child out of a home for more than 48 hours without court approval.