Child Abuse Agencies Cooperating to Ensure Children Are Protected

School nurses saw bruises. Teachers were so worried about bone-thin Lindsay Gentry that they brought her extra food and weighed her every day.

They reported their suspicions of child abuse at least 15 times to social workers, who investigated but found nothing wrong before the severely disabled girl died in 1996. On Tuesday, a jury held her parents responsible for her starvation and neglect.

“In this case, Lindsay fell through several cracks” in Los Angeles County’s child welfare system, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen Cady, who prosecuted the case that resulted in last week’s conviction of her parents on involuntary manslaughter and child abuse charges.

To better protect children such as Lindsay, a countywide effort is underway to foster closer cooperation and better communications among the agencies that deal with child abuse.

The Child Abuse Protocol, a handbook being developed by prosecutors and representatives from courts, schools and law enforcement, child welfare, public health and other agencies, is designed to promote cooperation and information-sharing. Nearly finished, it is expected to be released and implemented countywide in the fall.

“The protocol will be a resource that all of these agencies can go to for directions on what to do for [child abuse] cases,” said Assistant Dist. Atty. Bill Hodgman, co-chairman of the task force in charge of the two-year effort to draft the document.

Child abuse cases typically require the attention of many different agencies, which means there is bound to be some friction or lapses in how they work together if the organizations are left to their own devices, experts say. An allegation may come to the attention of social workers by way of school employees, as in Lindsay’s case. The child may be treated by doctors, who can also report and document abuse. If there is a crime, law enforcement officials gather evidence and prosecutors consider charges. The case may proceed to a dependency court or to a criminal court.

At each step, an agency might fail to pass on vital information concerning the child or inadvertently do something that impedes another’s work.

“Workers in one agency may not fully understand what others can do and how they can work together,” said Terry B. Friedman, presiding judge of Los Angeles County Juvenile Court. “That’s a particular problem this protocol will overcome.”

In Lindsay’s case, despite teachers’ repeated reports of abuse to the county Department of Children and Family Services, Cady said, social workers never told the girl’s doctors about the full extent of the allegations.

For example, a teacher who made Lindsay drink a liquid nutritional supplement twice a day noticed that the girl would gain 1 or 2 pounds from Monday to Friday, the teacher testified during the trial of Michael and Kathleen “Katrina” Gentry. But after Lindsay spent a weekend at home with her parents, she returned to school on Monday 1 or 2 pounds lighter than her Friday weight. At the time she died, Lindsay stood 4 feet, 6 inches tall and weighed 44 pounds.

The fluctuations in Lindsay’s weight, evidence that she wasn’t getting enough food at home, were never reported to her doctors, who for years were not alarmed by her extreme thinness because she suffered from myotonic dystrophy, a muscle-wasting disease.

Doctors “were not even informed about the issues about her losing weight,” Cady said.

And had the Department of Children and Family Services told police about all those abuse complaints against Lindsay’s parents, Michael and Kathleen Gentry, a criminal investigation and prosecution might have been launched earlier, said Donna Wills, head of the district attorney’s Family Violence Division and co-chairwoman of the Child Death Review Team.

“Right now, people aren’t communicating, and that is what’s causing the gap in services,” Wills said.

Those working on the protocol emphasize that although the Gentry case highlights communication lapses centering on the Department of Children and Family Services, the protocol is designed to improve how all the agencies interact with one another.

Participation by the many agencies that have been working on the protocol, which was recommended by a statewide report issued by the Governor’s Office of Criminal Justice Planning, is voluntary but anticipated. Final approval of the protocol, copies of which will become publicly available in the fall, is but a meeting or two away, task force members said.

The protocol won’t change existing law, but it will set forth “best practices for a sensitive and appropriate and effective handling of child abuse cases,” said Jane Blissert, head of the San Fernando branch of the district attorney’s office and a task force member.

For example, the protocol contains sections that encourage agencies to do a better job of reporting abuse allegations to other agencies. It is a reminder of the do’s and don’ts that can help or interfere with the duties of other agencies, such as how to handle and document evidence.

The law requires certain agencies to notify law enforcement if officials suspect abuse. But reporting is sometimes delayed and evidence can get tainted, said Lt. Paul Jendrucko, who supervises the Child Abuse Detail of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

According to a recent report issued by the Interagency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, the county Department of Children and Family Services received more than 150,000 reports of child abuse in 1998. But 92% of those cases were closed because social workers concluded that the reports were unfounded or unsubstantiated, said Edie Shulman, a program analyst for the group.