A Crisis for Crisis Managers :...

To be a children’s social worker is to experience hours of mundane office work interrupted by brief glimpses of the private hell of the family down the street.

At 8 o’clock one recent night, Deborah Ramirez was on duty in the Department of Children’s Services emergency response command post, joking with colleagues, sharing a chicken dinner, going over the mounds of paperwork she generates during the week.

By 9 p.m., she and two Santa Monica police officers are approaching the home of the suicidal mother of a 10-year-old boy, not knowing what they would find when they entered.

A physician had contacted children’s services to report his concerns about the woman, who had earlier called a suicide hot line. He had dispatched an ambulance to have her committed for psychiatric observation. The woman apparently wants to send her son to relatives in Northern California. Ramirez, 33 and a nine-year veteran of the department, must sort out events at the scene to determine what is best for the child.

Once inside the home, the rear apartment of a small duplex, Ramirez takes over with unassuming authority. Why are you suicidal? Do you have a plan to do it? What makes your life so distressing that you can’t continue on?

“I’m afraid of what I might do to him,” pleads the mother, catching sight of her son, a sandy-haired boy who is talking to police officers about his extensive card and comic book collection. “He’s the love of my life. I feel so horrible. I don’t think I’m the best person for him.”

Ramirez faces a dilemma: Should she accede to the mother’s wishes and dispatch the boy on a long night’s journey to relatives who may not be suitable caretakers, or would the boy be better off in temporary foster care?

It is the sort of decision faced every day by Los Angeles County’s 2,300 children’s social workers, who inhabit a world of high stress, grinding workloads and frequent burnout.

Now the social workers face another source of adversity: They are currently locked in a dispute over what they claim is gender-based wage discrimination and have voted to go on strike today if their pay demands are not met.

Their claims are backed by a 1992 county-funded study that found children’s social workers earn substantially less than county probation officers while performing work that is more demanding and dangerous. About two-thirds of county social workers are women; two-thirds of probation officers are men.

At the time of the study a mid-level social worker earned about $3,456 a month, compared with $4,056 for a probation officer. A social worker with four years experience earns about $40,000 a year; a probation officer with the same experience earns about $55,000.

Union officials say pay equity could be achieved in about six years, with a first-year cost of about $2 million to the county. But county officials, grappling with budget deficits, service cutbacks and other effects of one of the worst fiscal periods in history, say there is no money to correct the study’s findings.

The social workers have voted overwhelmingly to strike if their demand for pay comparable to that of probation workers is not met. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to take up their case at today’s board meeting.

Beyond establishing that they are underpaid, social workers believe the study also underscores the complexity and significance of their jobs.

“The value of the study is that it really nails the principal fact that our people are out there every day making life and death decisions,” said Peter Digre, director of the county’s Children’s Services Department.

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Death threats, obscene messages, hostile relatives, filthy houses concealing brutalized children--Doris Hollyfield has experienced it all in her 30 years as a Los Angeles County children’s social worker. Along the way, she has developed a sixth sense about people and their faults, learning to tread softly while going about her business.

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“Probation officers take care of people who maybe have committed crimes against children; we deal with the results of what those people do,” she said.

Hollyfield’s job is to place some of the 50,000 abused or neglected children the department deals with in foster homes each year. It requires constant supervision of the children, detailed court reports, periodic visits to the homes of sometimes hostile parents. Her workload averages about 70 cases at any given time.

“If I don’t find a child at home, I want to know where he is,” Hollyfield said, describing her modus operandi during home visits.

“A house may be cluttered or dusty, but the big thing is how a child looks and if they are happy. I talk to them alone, ask if they have friends at a school, in the neighborhood. I ask to see their report card to see what kind of grades they’re making. Often, the social worker is the only continuing presence in the child’s life.”

It can be difficult coping with the raw emotions of families in crisis, Hollyfield said. In one recent case, Hollyfield discovered that a child who was supposed to be living with his grandmother was back in the home of the drug-addicted mother from which he had been removed.

When she again removed the child, the mother began leaving a barrage of obscene and threatening messages on Hollyfield’s answering machine. One day she called and read from the Scriptures. Another day she claimed to be a high priestess. “All of this because I was just doing my job,” Hollyfield says with a laugh.

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Nirvana Reginald Gayle became a children’s social worker in 1979, after years working as a deputy probation officer, mostly in Central Juvenile Hall, where he supervised up to 50 youths. He is now a children’s services deputy regional administrator in charge of the emergency response command post.

Calls about suspected abuse that come over the emergency hot line are divided into those that demand immediate attention and those that should be looked into within five days. About 40% of the cases that require immediate attention are called in after hours, said Gayle. The after-hours crew handles about 100 cases each night, 10% to 15% of which require removing a child from a home.

With a rough outline of the case from hot line staff, each social worker decides if police backup may be required.

Gayle argues that the pay equity dispute is in no way intended to disparage probation officers. But he has walked both roads.

“I think the job of a social worker could be perceived to be more dangerous because generally you are going out there alone without the aid of police officers,” he said. “With probation, generally you are dealing with people who have already gone through the court system, whereas a social worker is frequently the first to make contact in a crisis. The emergency staff especially is in much more peril.”

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Deborah Ramirez listens closely as the suicidal mother insists that her son be sent to his grandmother while she is hospitalized. If the grandmother is willing to take the child, there is no reason to refuse.

The woman raises her hand and slams her fist to the table. “I am so afraid they will put a big red stamp on me and label me an unfit mother,” she cries.

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Not far away is a blue packed suitcase. The boy has bundled clothes, toys, Rollerblades and comics into a big plastic bag. He carries a brown teddy bear. But there are practical problems. It appears the family may not be close; the mother has not told the grandmother the boy would be on his way. And she has no money for a plane trip to Northern California. She has a welfare check, but it is not cashed.

Ramirez tells the woman she can voluntarily place her son with children’s services for up to six months. The case will not be referred to court. She will see a social worker periodically, but when she feels better, she can retrieve her son.

As the mother signs the papers, her son wanders over. “If you give me away, I’ll sue you,” he says mischievously.

As the family departs and separates, Ramirez’s task becomes to connect with the boy, to make the explanations easier and the ride to the foster home less distressing.

Later, after returning to the office about 12:30 a.m. to finish her shift and begin the long process of documenting the case, she offers an evaluation.

“I feel good about it, like both of them are safe. He’s going to have food to eat, a school to go to,” she said. “She has done such a good job with him, I felt it would have been detrimental to her own health and recovery to have him sent away, out of town. This way, she’ll have someone here. Basically, for me, it’s over with now. Hopefully, the next social worker who comes along will keep him grounded.”