Settle Suit, Then Shape Up

This time, Los Angeles County supervisors say they really want life to improve for the 35,000 children in the county’s foster-care system. A majority say they hope to settle a massive class- action lawsuit rather than oppose it in court. That’s a new direction for a board that for two years had fought strenuously to avoid complying with state requirements that social workers visit each child at least once a month.

The class action, filed last week, alleges that the nearly 80% of children in county custody who have emotional or mental problems are not getting the help they need to finish school and lead productive lives. It charges that these failures, by the county’s Department of Children and Family Services, the Board of Supervisors and two state agencies, violate federal Medicaid and disability statutes. The lawsuit also says the children are being denied their right under the 14th Amendment to personal safety and reasonable treatment.

Katie T. is one of those youngsters. With her mother living on the street and her father in jail, the county took custody of her when she was 4. But neglect of the child only intensified during her 10 years in county care.

Katie has been moved 36 times. She’s had 18 stays at seven psychiatric hospitals and seven stays at MacLaren Children’s Center, the county’s so-called emergency shelter, where she currently lives. Despite psychiatric assessments when Katie was 5 and 8 years old that identified her serious emotional and mental health needs, she never received the necessary treatment.

Katie, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, is one of thousands of children deteriorating in a foster-care maze. When the problems of these children inevitably worsen, they languish in psychiatric facilities or are labeled delinquent.

In Illinois, Alabama and Washington, similar suits triggered a major overhaul of child welfare agencies. The Illinois agency was once so poorly managed and overwhelmed that it placed many children out of state, far from families and friends. Now, reorganized and more ably run, the agency finds homes, health services and schooling for almost all its wards near their families.

Lawsuits aren’t themselves a solution. For years L.A. County has paid big bucks to individual children or their families who sued because of mistreatment or, in the worst cases, death at the hands of foster parents. Yet the future has remained bleak for children stuck in the system.

Supervisors recently fired the beleaguered director of children’s services, Anita Bock. Attracting a successor who can expertly take on this troubled department won’t be easy. That prospect should prod the supervisors to make comprehensive changes. Doing so will mean negotiating a settlement of the class-action lawsuit, avoiding the expenditure of tax dollars on a court fight and then making sure that all children get the therapy, schooling and medical care they need.