Flaws Cited in County Protection of Children

The agency responsible for protecting abused and neglected children in Los Angeles County sometimes fails to properly assess the risks facing its charges--occasionally failing to conduct monthly visits, screen caretakers’ criminal records or provide medical checkups, according to a state audit released Wednesday.

The report by the California state auditor does not blame the death or injury of any child on the county Department of Children and Family Services, but it suggests that the agency needs a more rigorous system to help social workers protect children.

The review included 12 cases in which children died during or after being under the county agency’s protection. The study found that in a third of the deaths, social workers had not completed monthly visits that might have detected some danger.

Administrators at the county agency responded angrily, saying the report unfairly singles out the agency for criticism while ignoring the judges, lawyers, parents, psychologists and volunteers who also are responsible for the safety of wards of the court.

They also questioned the accuracy of the study, which was based on 24 of the more than 73,000 children under the county’s supervision. “It’s taking the 12 worst cases, where children died, and another 12 cases to draw conclusions about the whole system,” said Renee Powers, a deputy director with the children’s agency. “It’s baseless, just baseless.”

The audit was ordered by the Legislature after the death 1 1/2 years ago of Lance Helms, a North Hollywood toddler who died in a home where social workers warned that he might not be safe. A bitter feud has followed the Helms case, with the children’s agency blaming some judges in the county Children’s Court for allegedly failing to heed warnings when children are put in danger.

The dispute escalated in September when The Times reported that the county’s attorneys criticized five judges for allegedly putting children at risk of physical or sexual abuse.

State auditors said they reviewed the allegations in that report but did not find a pattern of poor judicial decisions. State Auditor Kurt Sjoberg said his employees were surprised when they found instead that some social workers were not providing children the services they are entitled to under state and local regulations.

Those rules require that children under court jurisdiction be visited at least once a month by a social worker. In eight of the 24 cases reviewed, the auditor found that the visits were not made, including a few egregious failures.

One child who died in 1995 had not been visited in nine of the 15 months before the death. The father, who had been accused repeatedly of physical abuse, was visited only four times during that time.

In another case, no one was assigned to substitute for a social worker who went on leave. The child and his mother were not visited for six months, up until the time the child died.

In two other cases, monthly visits were not conducted leading up to a child’s death, including one case in which the county agency issued a waiver allowing a social worker to see his charge less frequently.

“Would those children be alive today if those visits had been made? We don’t know that,” Sjoberg said. “We don’t know what they would have found in those visits--bruising, or a caregiver going back on drugs or any other type of problem. We just don’t know.”

County officials said that three social workers were fired or resigned under pressure after such lapses and that two supervisors were suspended. However, they said that the focus on the cases in which children died skewed the study and that in 90% of cases the county does complete visitations.

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Bolstering the county’s claim, the department cited the fact that a San Francisco-based nonprofit agency Wednesday filed a lawsuit claiming that the state was not properly overseeing the work of counties in protecting children. The Youth Law Center cited Los Angeles as just one of three counties in the state that it said is overseeing the care of abused and neglected children properly.

The state auditor said that its findings of inadequate oversight go beyond visitations and that children are not receiving medical care in some cases and that their caretakers are not being properly screened to ensure they don’t have criminal records.

In six of the 24 cases, criminal checks were not made or were inadequate, the audit said. In two cases, medical checkups were delayed. Finally, the report said that in three cases, social workers did not file their reports with the Children’s Court on time, making it difficult for lawyers and judges to determine where children should live.

In one of the problem cases, a woman was given custody of a 1-year-old and a 2-year-old because she was purportedly the children’s maternal aunt and because she had twice cleared a criminal background check. About two weeks later, the 2-year-old was killed and the woman was arrested. It was later determined that the woman was not the aunt, but a family friend, and that she had two convictions for drug-related offenses, according to the audit.

In another case, an uncle was not subjected to a criminal background even after a social worker reported that he drank too much, could be violent and brought children into the home who stole.

Sjoberg said his office was not able to determine why the screenings and visitations were not provided, but that the problem did not seem to be solely due to heavy caseloads for social workers, which have increased to an average of more than 40.

County officials acknowledged that such reviews were not completed in every case, but they again protested that the auditor had focused on cases that were “the worst of the worst” and not on the vast majority of cases that were handled properly.

The Department of Children and Family Services officials cited a review by the state Department of Social Services in 1992 that they said concluded that the county completed medical visits, court reports and visitations on time in at least 90% of cases. They added that the county reviewed the criminal records of even parents and relatives, exceeding the state’s requirements.

Sjoberg conceded that the audit will not settle the animosities between the county’s judges and the children’s agency over the protection of children. “But we hope this will further consideration of this whole process,” Sjoberg said. “From our point of view, the discussion should center on what is best for children and keeping them out of harm’s way.”

A sharply worded letter from Peter Digre, the county agency’s director, says that the state audit completely missed its point. It should be recast to focus on the Children’s Court and the “300 cases per month” in which judges do not follow social workers’ recommendations, he wrote. The criticism of the children’s agency was especially ironic, administrators there said, because the Helms case focused on the alleged failure of a judge, not a social worker.

“The state auditor’s failure to even consider or address the more serious cases and the cause-and-effect relationships on child safety is the most glaring deficiency in its report,” Digre wrote.

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Superior Court Judge Michael Nash, who supervises the courts for troubled children, called it “patently ridiculous” for Digre to try to focus criticism on the judiciary, because it agrees with the children’s agency’s recommendations in 98% of cases.

“It seems they want to deflect any criticism of their operation,” said Nash. “All of us could use some improvement in our operations.”

The state audit suggests that one of the most meaningful reforms for the county would be to shift to an “actuarial” system to determine the safety of children in their homes. That model, used in Michigan and other locales, ranks the danger to children based on a point system that measures factors such as substance abuse and domestic violence.

Sjoberg cited two studies that suggest that the system is a better predictor of the safety of children. But Digre said that he does not believe in the model, citing a Stanford University professor to back his position.