It Happened in Los Angeles

Danzel Bailey’s starvation in the care of his grandmother was hideous and routine. Not that 11-month-olds with the weight of an average 2-month-old die every day in the county’s foster care system. But since June 2000, lawyers have filed at least 58 claims on behalf of foster children who died or were raped, beaten or severely neglected. And while the county Department of Children and Family Services fired the caseworker who failed to monitor Danzel’s care, it has done nothing about the long-standing systemic failures that allowed him to waste away in plain sight.

Danzel was the fourth child of a drug-addicted mother. Believing he had been exposed to drugs in the womb, a county social worker placed him with foster parents, who took good care of him. But state law requires that families be kept together when possible, so the county moved the baby to the care of his maternal grandmother, Sarah Jones.

In her home, Danzel steadily deteriorated, dying in April of starvation and pneumonia, according to the county medical examiner. Jones is now serving an 8-year prison term for child abuse, and the doctor who saw Danzel periodically--and who should have been alarmed by his decline--is facing a complaint filed with the medical board. But going after these two won’t keep the 40,000 children in foster care safe. What would?

* Frequent visits by social workers. State law requires caseworkers to drop in on kids at least monthly to make sure they’re healthy and safe. But in Los Angeles County that’s not happening. In fact, the Department of Children and Family Services is fighting judges’ authority to review social workers’ decisions to miss visits; the agency claims overloaded social workers don’t have the time. Monthly visits seem the minimum to monitor these vulnerable kids. The agency needs to stop fighting and make it happen.

* Better tracking of medical records and school transcripts. Jones got Danzel’s medical charts when the infant came to her--something that doesn’t happen for all foster kids. But the baby’s doctor didn’t see them at first, so he didn’t immediately recognize Danzel’s failure to thrive. Spotty or lost records are a chronic problem. The result is kids who don’t get needed medical treatment or help in school. The consequence for Danzel was no treatment at all.

* Administrators with the leadership to make these changes happen. Foster agency head Anita Bock, appearing last week before the county’s Commission on Children and Families, argued that Danzel’s death was an anomaly, the failure of one social worker. Wrong. Danzel died because of systemwide failures.

The county Board of Supervisors should not allow Bock to dodge responsibility for these failures. But such tragedies won’t end until the supervisors themselves show that they care about the county’s most vulnerable citizens--even though these constituents are too young to vote or rattle political cages.

When Danzel died he weighed 12 pounds--just five pounds more than the day he was born. He had no teeth. Bald spots covered his head. Tiny bones poked hard against skin that was scarred, scraped and filthy.

This happened in Los Angeles. Adults here can go about their business until the next baby starves. Or they can tell the supervisors they will no longer tolerate the scandal that is Los Angeles County foster care.