Family Preservation Program Is Ineffective, Audit Charges

A $22-million program to keep Los Angeles County’s families together and their children out of foster care is ineffective and poorly managed, according to an audit released Wednesday.

The county’s family preservation program, once singled out for praise by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been so poorly managed by the county’s Department of Children Services that fewer and fewer families have been fully aided over the years, the audit said.

The director of the department even asked auditors to check her own agency’s methods of awarding contracts for helping to train and counsel families. Auditors found so many irregularities that this year’s bids were thrown out.

“The program has evolved into something quite different than intended,” auditors concluded.

Children’s services Director Anita Bock said the audit’s findings did not surprise her. She said she hopes to make numerous changes in the program as part of her reorganization of the massive agency.

But she stressed that despite its flaws, the program has helped keep numerous families together. “Many families have benefited from it,” Bock said.

The Legislature in 1991 authorized the family preservation program to enable social workers to keep families united rather than put the children in foster care. The next year, Los Angeles launched its preservation operation, which auditors say was uniquely constituted--the Department of Children and Family Services administers the program, but relies heavily on 28 private community groups and other county departments, such as mental health.

Furthermore, each children’s services regional office was given wide latitude in determining which families would be assisted.

Still, the project was categorized as merely a pilot program until this year, with no explanation to the community organizations with whom it contracted, auditors found. Also, agency computers did not track data to evaluate whether the program bettered families. Nor did the department even budget money to evaluate the program.

Only this year, auditors wrote, did the newly arrived Bock take steps toward evaluating the program and budget money to that end.

Most significant, most families were placed in the lowest tier of need--meaning they received the fewest visits from social workers and the least counseling. The number of high-need cases, which are costlier, has steadily dropped over the years, auditors reported.

Simultaneously, the number of new referrals to the program who get assistance for special needs such as child care or transportation has steadily dropped. Auditors could not determine why fewer families were getting full aid but recommended that the department examine the issue.

Finally, Bock earlier this year asked auditors to review bids for family preservation contracts that her department had solicited before her arrival. Auditors found such a wide variance in how the bids were evaluated that they recommended that Bock put the entire package out for new bids. She did, extending existing contracts until next summer when new ones are expected to be implemented.