Foster Care: Studied to Death

Last week, a task force appointed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors released the results of its six-month look at the county’s troubled foster care system. We hope it’s the last of its sort for a long while. Sprinkled among its pages were the kinds of directives that make serious observers wince. County and state officials were told to “designate sufficient staff,” provide the “necessary resources” and seek “sufficient funding” to fix the various problems. In the end, the report didn’t reveal anything that hadn’t already been learned in three audits and a grand jury report since 1996 and in investigations of the deaths of three foster care children during just three months last year. And the task force called for--you guessed it--the creation of another task force.

Enough. The problems have been clearly outlined and are mirrored around the nation. Among them is that foster family agencies have a disincentive to carefully study placements since quick placements keep the funds rolling in. Other problems include inadequate tracking systems, failure to detect early signs of child abuse in foster homes and the fact that few operators appear to be firmly penalized for egregious errors.

Fortunately, a deeper look at what’s wrong with the department can be gleaned from a report that predates the current one. Produced by Sandra Davis, interim director of the county Department of Children and Family Services before Anita M. Bock took over last month, the report documented entrenched internal problems that are far worse than many would have imagined, but it still offers the best hope of getting to the heart of the department’s struggles. A brief synopsis:

Department staff members seem to have everything but the children on their minds in an organizational culture that is “inbred,” “isolationist” and “adversarial” toward the public. Interdepartmental “rivalry and conflict” are the order of the day, not cooperation for the benefit of the county’s most vulnerable residents.

Department managers rarely communicate among themselves and “operations are controlled . . . based on the workers’ fear, inexperience, undoable workload, and lack of access to information.”

These problems demand the Board of Supervisors’ attention in the coming weeks. The children can’t wait for another task force. Instead we should see more reports to the board on what exactly is being done to change the culture of the county department that holds the fates of thousands of youngsters in its hands.