Child Protective System in S.D. Scored by Grand Jury : Children: County Department of Social Services has a ‘mind-set’ that abuse is everywhere, report says.

The San Diego County child-protective system is “out of control, with few checks and little balance,” the county grand jury said Thursday in a blistering report that called for “profound change” and urged prompt “corrective action.”

Capping a seven-month investigation, the grand jury said the county Department of Social Services has developed a “mind-set” that abuse and neglect are everywhere, a powerful bias that too frequently tears families apart unnecessarily rather than working to keep families together whenever possible.

In many cases involving allegations of sexual molestation, for instance, it is “almost impossible to prove that (molestation) happened,” the panel said. But “the burden of proof, contrary to every other area of judicial system, is on the alleged perpetrator to prove his innocence.”

The grand jury said that virtually every aspect of the system--designed to identify, then safeguard children who are abused or neglected--must share the blame. The county social service agency is too bureaucratic. County lawyers fail to screen cases carefully. Juvenile Court is too chaotic, the grand jury said.

The current system, “characterized as it is by confidential files, closed courts, gag orders and statutory immunity, has isolated itself to a degree unprecedented in our system of jurisprudence and ordered liberties,” the grand jury said. In addition, the system resists external criticism as “inappropriate,” the panel said.

The first of 86 changes, the grand jury said, should be to do away with the agency charged with investigating abuse and replace it with a brand-new one apart from existing bureaucracy.

Currently, the agency includes a division that too often “can not distinguish real abuse from fabrication, abuse from neglect and neglect from poverty or cultural differences,” it said.

Richard W. (Jake) Jacobsen, director of the county Department of Social Services, said Thursday he welcomed the report but disputed certain charges--though he stressed he could not comment on most allegations because he had not yet read the 55-page grand jury report.

“Our social workers can tell the difference between fabrication and child abuse,” Jacobsen said. He added, “I stand behind my staff but that doesn’t mean my staff doesn’t recognize, and I don’t recognize, that there are areas for us to improve.

“Certainly if they’ve got recommendations in there that are going to help us improve, we’re going to welcome those recommendations and implement them,” Jacobsen said, adding that change would be timely. “It always puts it on a fast rail when it comes like this.”

County officials have 90 days to respond directly to the grand jury and its report. But the grand jury cannot enforce the changes it recommends.

The grand jury said it was acutely aware that the county is financially strapped. In putting the report together, the panel was told repeatedly that “the solution was more dollars.” For instance, judges said they needed 16 more courts and Jacobsen said he needed twice as many social workers.

The panel said, however, that its conclusion was that the system “does not need to expand.” Instead, a streamlined bureaucracy with “clearly defined goals” should save the county “many of the dollars which are currently contributing nothing to the well-being (of) children and families,” the panel said.

Too many social workers are overworked and over-stressed, the grand jury said. Meanwhile, the agency has too many managers, the grand jury said, recommending that “much” of Social Services management return to “on-line” social work.

“I think the DSS has become so large and become so unwieldy and so top heavy that it is no longer able to function efficiently,” said Carol Hopkins, the grand juror who spearheaded the panel’s report. A new agency with “a specific goal could function more efficiently,” she said, but did not provide other details.

Jacobsen said the agency was not too top-heavy. The agency has 150 “senior managers” serving 4,000 employees, he said.

The agency had an $821-million budget for fiscal 1992, Social Services spokeswoman Carol Baenziger said.

About $51 million of that total went to the Children’s Services Bureau, one of six Social Services departments, Baenziger said.

The bureau should be taken out of the Social Services orbit and reorganized under a new name, Department of Family Services, the grand jury said.

Jacobsen said he was not necessarily opposed to the idea. “If that is the way it goes, that does not bother me,” he said, adding that it made no sense “to hang on just to hang on.”

One of the most compelling reasons the change makes sense, the grand jury said, is that allegations of abuse too often lead to a child, especially an infant or toddler, being yanked away from home and ultimately put up for adoption. Some 40% of the children in the system will never return home, it said.

“There is a widely held perception within the community and even within some areas of the Department (of Social Services), that the Department is in the ‘baby brokering’ business,” the grand jury said. “Adoptions, by too many accounts, is the ‘tail wagging the dog’ in the (child-protective) system.”

The jury also called for the creation of an independent, objective unit--to report to the new Department of Family Services it envisions--to investigate allegations of abuse and decide when children should leave home.

That investigation is currently done by a social worker, who “rarely tries to find information favorable or evidence (that exonerates) parents,” the panel said.

It added: “The current leadership of DSS . . . demands such loyalty and uniformity of thinking and approach that, under existing leadership, such independence is not likely.”

That bias was evident everywhere in the system, the jury said, stressing that it hoped setting a new county agency apart would have a ripple effect and lead to checks, balances and--most importantly--accountability.

For instance, there are “serious problems” at the Center for Child Protection at Children’s Hospital, which examines most San Diego-area children who may have been abused, the grand jury said.

The center is loathe to rule out abuse even when there is no physical proof of it, the jury said. That “poisons the stream” for everything that follows, it said.

Therapists, who interview children and parents for reports to judges, told the grand jury of pressure to go along with dubious conclusions of abuse.

Therapists reported that “as long as they are in agreement with the social worker, their reports are given great weight. On the other hand, if they disagree with the social worker, their recommendations may not even appear in the report to the court,” the grand jury said.

County counsel, which represents the Social Services department in court, “should be a check in the system,” the grand jury said.

But deputies have “not been screening cases adequately,” letting far too many “questionable” cases go to court because of “pressure” from Social Service staff, the grand jury said. That is not only a waste of time and money, but it also exposes the county to suits from parents who are falsely accused, the grand jury said.

The Juvenile Court, which is supposed to be the “ultimate check” in the system, also “is not fulfilling its role,” the grand jury said.

Rarely, the jury said, does a judge demand a “high standard of investigation or performance” from Social Services staff. The judges “are viewed, and appear to view themselves, as ‘pro-child,’ which translates to ‘pro-DSS,’ ” it said.

The result, the grand jury said, is that the courts “do not appear to offer an ‘even playing field’ in which (the judge) serves as a neutral arbiter of the facts.”