Abuse Hotline Is Improved, Report Finds

The beleaguered Los Angeles County child abuse hotline has significantly improved its performance in quickly answering calls from citizens who want to report a child in danger, but still fails to answer the phone before many of those callers hang up, an audit by the county auditor-controller’s office states.

In one extreme case, the report states, a caller to the hotline waited more than three hours for the county to pick up the line.

The county’s child abuse hotline serves as the first contact between a person who wants to report an abused or neglected child and the government agency responsible for the safety of endangered youngsters. More than 100,000 callers seek the help of the hotline each year.

The auditor’s report, presented last Thursday to the Board of Supervisors, shows that waits for English-speaking callers improved notably, averaging 11 seconds during the 90-day review period of Jan. 13 to April 13. That wait was 74% shorter than the average wait during a comparison period of Nov. 1, 1997, to Jan. 12.

Spanish speakers calling the hotline--about 75 a day--saw response times improve by 11% to an average of 1 minute and 15 seconds, down from the 1 minute and 24 seconds in the previous period.

The improvements were attributed in part to the addition of more staff to the hotline in January. The staff increase followed a Times report on the department’s often inadequate response to reports of child abuse and neglect through the hotline. That article prompted the board to order the audit.

Despite the clear improvement, the auditor’s report showed that severe problems continue to plague the hotline, which is operated by the Department of Children and Family Services.

During busy times, some English-speaking callers waited for more than 34 minutes to get through. Spanish speakers sometimes waited up to 1 hour and 40 minutes. For Spanish speakers, the wait was long enough that 14% hung up before the hotline answered. On average, callers who hung up had been on hold almost 3 minutes.

The report warned that delays on some calls “discourages callers from ultimately reporting legitimate cases of child abuse.”

Waits on the hotline’s “consultation line,” where people can talk to a social worker before determining whether circumstances warrant a child abuse report, increased 57% to an average of 6 minutes and 27 seconds. Fewer than one in 10 of those calls were being answered within a minute.

One caller to the hotline’s consultation line waited 3 hours and 41 minutes.

The report is the first to be issued since the Board of Supervisors ordered a comprehensive audit of the Department of Children and Family Services in January, the first such audit in the department’s 14-year history.

“This report shows that we have made significant improvements. It shows the department is answering 98% of its English-speaking calls in 60 seconds or less,” said Sharyn Logan, a deputy director who oversees the hotline.

Logan said five more Spanish-speaking social workers are scheduled to start May 15.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich plans to introduce a motion--possibly today--to implement the auditor’s 13 recommendations for further improvements at the hotline. The board motion will ask the auditor to report back in a month to outline how well the recommendations have been implemented by the child welfare agency.

The report reserved its greatest criticism for the consultation line. More than two-thirds of all callers who selected the consultation line hung up before their call was answered. In most cases where the caller hung up, they had waited more than six minutes to speak with a social worker. In several instances, callers waited two hours before hanging up.

The hotline number is (800) 540-4000.