Some Gains for Abuse Hotline

There are two clear messages in the audit report on Los Angeles County’s troubled child abuse hotline: One is that the response time for callers reporting child abuse or endangerment has improved from its depths of a few months ago, when many calls were lost and some were put on hold for 40 minutes or more. The other is that the county still has a long way to go to reach its goal, answering every call within 60 seconds.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors quickly responded to the audit Tuesday, voting to improve working conditions and add more Spanish speakers, along with accepting other recommendations stemming from the first comprehensive review of the Department of Children and Family Services. The board ordered the audit after Times reporters Sonia Nazario and James Rainey exposed the department’s often inadequate response to the public’s attempts to report suspected child abuse and neglect on the hotline, (800) 540-4000.

Clearly, improvements already have occurred. With 15 additional staffers, the wait for English-speaking callers was shortened 74%, to an average of 11 seconds. But the wait for Spanish-speaking callers improved only nine seconds, to 1 minute and 15 seconds.

And there’s still a major trouble spot. Callers who selected the so-called consultation line to ask a social worker whether a report was warranted had to wait 6 minutes, 17 seconds. That’s even longer than before the audit, and two-thirds of these callers hung up before being answered.

During busy periods, some callers waited more than an hour and in an extreme case there was a wait of three hours. Still, some calls were disconnected because of telephone problems.

The auditors noted a problem even with parking: Employees must be away from the phones because they have to move their cars in the overcrowded parking lot to accommodate shift changes and lunch breaks.

Plenty of shortcomings remain. But the supervisors are moving with uncharacteristic speed. This will help to restore confidence that children won’t keep paying for the deficiencies of county systems.