Audio slide show: A second chance
An L.A. County program returns abused children to their troubled homes, emphasizing parental training over foster care. But there are risks.
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Darlene Compton had her son, Jontay, taken away from her in November 2008. The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, the largest county-run system in the nation, is giving second chances -- and sometimes more -- to hundreds of its most troubled parents, like Compton, in an effort to keep kids out of foster care. It's part of what experts see as one of the nation's most promising experiments in child welfare. It is also one of the riskiest, putting many more children back into homes once deemed unfit, where some may suffer further injury or even death.
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