Casa Pacifica Is Decried and Defended at Hearing

Foster parents decried alleged abuse of children at Casa Pacifica and said they are kept there too long, while supporters testified Tuesday that the children’s facility is critically needed because it cares for the county’s most difficult children.

More than 30 people spoke to Ventura County supervisors about Casa Pacifica’s future at a four-hour hearing Tuesday. The 65 people who attended the hearing endured a two-hour interruption after the first 45 minutes of the hearing.

“The subject that unites us today, also divides us: children and the care of those children,” Supervisor John Flynn said.

Some foster parents charged that Casa Pacifica places children in chains, hoses them down, over-medicates them and locks them in padded cells. They then demanded that no further funding go to the county’s only shelter and residential treatment facility for abused and neglected children.

Officials said there is no evidence to support their allegations.

“We do not use flex cuffs or hoses,” said Steve Elson, Casa Pacifica’s executive director. “We have an isolation room as part of a day treatment program. It’s used to preclude the need for physical containment. It is not a locked room. Children even voluntarily go into that room for quite time.”

Other foster parents said the shelter care children were kept at Casa Pacifica too long and should instead be placed in their homes--which is how the county dealt with emergency care until Casa Pacifica opened its doors in July 1994.

“There are foster homes in Ventura County that are not being used,” said foster parent Diane Reno of Newbury Park. “Foster homes have sat vacant for a year without a placement. . . . Younger children need to be in a home setting.”

However, if the county returned to the foster care program for emergency shelter care--an option that was presented to the Board of Supervisors--there would not be enough homes to meet the county’s need, said James Isom, director of the Public Social Services Agency (PSSA).

“If you told us to move the children today, we would have nowhere to take them,” Isom said.

In a report submitted to the Board of Supervisors, Isom outlined five other options for Casa Pacifica, ranging from discontinuing the residential care program and providing only emergency shelter care--PSSA’s preference--to adding a shelter care cottage--Casa Pacifica’s preference--or converting the whole operation to a county-run facility.

Casa Pacifica now has two distinct programs.

Last year, the shelter, which is a partnership between Casa Pacifica and the county, served 328 children who were removed from their homes under court order due to neglect or abuse. The second program is a 28-bed residential treatment program, run solely by Casa Pacifica, for children who have exhausted Ventura County’s foster care and group home settings. It served 39 children last year.

Casa Pacifica has been under state investigation over allegations of poor management and inadequate care since October. The investigation was prompted by a 9-year-old’s sexual assault on a toddler.

But officials said last week that the investigation has been halted until a seven-member team, assembled by the state Department of Social Services, can visit the facility and conduct its own evaluation.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Superior Court Judge Melinda Johnson, who presides over the county’s Juvenile Court, spoke in support of Casa Pacifica. She encouraged county supervisors to continue working with the shelter, rather than going back to a foster-care-only program.

Casa Pacifica is preferable to foster care in many cases because it provides comprehensive medical, psychological and educational services, Johnson said. She also said Casa Pacifica can arrange for parents to visit their children more frequently than could be done under the foster care program.

And though she described many as “saints,” Johnson stressed that placing children in the care of foster parents is not always safer than a facility like Casa Pacifica.

“I don’t think the board should be under the impression that children are never abused in foster care,” she said. “We’ve had instances where there have been physical abuses. We’ve had children die at the hands of foster parents. We’ve had children molested, or children who didn’t receive proper medication. There are cases where they’ve received the same kind of abuse they had at home.”

Ventura resident Ed Lyon, a former foster care parent, also expressed strong support for Casa Pacifica. He said he understood how problems could occur with certain children, even under the best of care.

“My wife and I had one child who attempted to burn our house down,” he said. “We had weapons and drugs brought into our house. We had our car stolen. Some problems are unavoidable no matter where children are placed.”

After listening to testimony, the supervisors decided not to make any decisions until the state’s investigation is completed, and directed county staff to form a work group to reexamine the county’s child welfare system.

“I am absolutely furious,” Supervisor Judy Mikels said. “We started this because we felt the issue before us was that if Casa Pacifica lost its license, what would we do with our kids? We shouldn’t do a thing except tell the people who are in charge to get it together and resolve this first. The system is broken because some of the people in the system have not managed it and are not making it work.”

There could be at least two groups coming out of this umbrella group, Elson said after the meeting:

“One to look at some of the procedural issues that predominate the concerns of the foster parents, and the other to dig into the financial impact of these various options,” Elson said.

In response to the impassioned pleas from the foster parents, Elson said, “Children’s issues and how we as a society deal with children generate a huge amount of emotion, interest and concern. And if there’s good news coming out of that meeting today, then that’s it--there are some very passionate and caring people of kids in Ventura County.”

Dawn Hobbs is a correspondent and Carlos V. Lozano is a Times staff writer.