LA’s Foster Kids v. DCFS v. LA Times Reporting
February 8th, 2010 by 
Celeste Fremon
Okay, first the LA Times ran an article last Friday titled, “L.A. County will no longer strive to reunite families.”
Like many who at least nominally follow foster care issues, I read the startling headline and the article that followed with a sinking heart.
Reporter Garrett Therolf wrote:
The decision is the most significant of several reforms made by the department after a series of high-profile child deaths last year, some of which involved the department putting too much faith in its ability to rehabilitate families. In 2009, The Times reported that reunifications led to some children’s further injuries and even deaths. Isabel Garcia, for instance, starved to death two months after child-welfare officials deemed that she, her five siblings and their parents were all doing well.
And then Therolf went on to name the other recent cases in which inadequate oversight and poor decisions on the part of social workers, meant that no one intervened when red flags indicated a child was in danger at the hands of his or her family—with hideously tragic results.
But, although the LA Times and others had reported the deaths as a series that suggested a trend, experts in the field noted that, despite ghastly nature of the high profile tragedies, there was no sudden rash of such incidents. According to what DCFS Director Trish Ploehn told the Daily News last week, the number of deaths fluctuates within a fairly close range from year to year. In 2009 there were 17 deaths, higher than the 14 of 2008, but lower than the 20 that occurred in 1998 and 1999 when DCFS was snatching many more children into its care.
[UPDATE: In a chat today, Garrett Therolf rightly reminded me that, due to a difference in the way the deaths are now reported, the 2009 figures and the 1999 figures are not really comparing apples to apples, making the already complex topic still harder to assess.]
However, press-fueled public hysteria and political pressure being what it is, many worried that LA County, rather than analyze the details of its actual systemic failures, would instead go for the politically expedient broad strokes. The agency would be quicker to take kids away unnecessarily from their parents and would make it harder for imperfect, but essentially decent parents to get their kids back when they have made some needed corrections.
The results would be another kind of slow motion tragedy in which kids may not die, but nor do they thrive.
Nevermind that, as the National Coalition for child Protection Reform points out, study after study has indicated that in most cases, kids do much better with their families, even if those families are far from ideal.
Back in September, The Daily News printed a warning that the feverish focus on those awful deaths was creating a panic among Foster Care officials and that bad policy could result.
And now that bad policy seemed to have come to pass.
BUT WAIT—MAYBE NOT
After the LA Times article ran, DCFS Director Trish Ploehn contacted foster care watchdog, Richard Wexler, to state that she and the agency were not abandoning family reunification at all, and that she never said any such thing to the Times.
(DCFS also sent out a press release to that effect.)
AT WHICH POINT…The Times appeared removed its initial headline and replaced it thusly….
AT WHICH POINT watchdog Wexler reported that the Times had evidently backed off of its claim that DCFS was going to push less for family reunification.
AT WHICH POINT….the LA Times Garrett Therolf (who is generally a very good reporter) contacted Wexler and told him that the Times may have changed its headline (because the headline person was bad, bad, bad and got things wrong) but that Ploehn had said what she said, and the Times wasn’t backing off its story once teensy bit.
AT WHICH POINT ….I lost track of the argument.
Unfortunately one point has become obscured by these several days of the Times and DCFS parsing who meant what: Abuse can take place at both ends of the spectrum. Every week parents come before the LA County Supervisors and plead for help in getting their children back from the foster care system. Most of the time nothing comes of it.
I hear from some of those parents on a regular basis. Right now, I don’t have the staff to investigate their cases. (I intend to begin to change all that later on this year.)
But the LA Times, despite its staff cuts, does have the capacity to at least look into some of these troubling stories of kids yanked into the trauma that is foster care for reasons that are filmsy at best. Mr. Therolf has demonstrated in the past, that he is more than talented enough to do it. {Check out his story on the county’s unnerving computerized system for evaluating whether a child should be removed from a home.)
Let us hope he can persuade his editors to allow him to investigate some of the individual cases that show the other sad end of the DCFS continuum.
Such coverage would provide a much needed balance to the horror stories that are still threatening to drive the County into a child-snatching panic.
Posted in Foster Care | 
13 Comments »
February 8th, 2010 at 11:49 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by californiaBNN and Celeste Fremon, NCCPR. NCCPR said: #journalism child welfare RT @WitnessLA: Who said what about Foster Care in LA county. No one seems entirely sure. http://bit.ly/cG70C8 [...]
February 8th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Unless you work with DCFS and daily basis, one cannot truly appreciate how farged up they really are.
Children, our world’s most precious asset, yet we treat them horribly in LA and beyond.
With the rotten school systems and with DCFS.
Sad indeed.
February 9th, 2010 at 8:17 am
Wait! Everyone on the left is telling me that government is the solution to our problems.
March 26th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
My child was ILLEGALLY abducted by the Ms. Denise Sherman of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services! On Dec. 24th of 2008 Ms. Sherman called my house from a DCFS cell phone, as it stated LA County DCFS right on the caller ID. She called that morning to speak with Mr. Ruben D. Carvajal, a friend I was allowing to stay at my place as he had just come back to town and was looking for a place of his own. It was early, before 10:00am and she spoke to Ruben on the phone in Hebrew or Yiddish. I questioned him concerning the call, he told me not to worry as this is the woman that “HELPS HIM BRING HIS CHILDREN INTO THE COUNTRY FROM CHILE EVERY YEAR”. He also told me that I would be meeting her soon as she called to “SCORE SOME WEED”. My son was over at a friends house where we had planned on spending Christmas eve, Ms. Sherman came over to my house. Me, my wife, Ms. Sherman and Mr. Carvajal piled into the truck that his mother was renting for him as he cannot due to the fact that he cannot get a drivers license due to multiple DUIs. We went to Reseda Discount Caregivers, she handed money to Mr. Carvajal who went into Reseda Discount Caregivers and purchased an eighth of marijuana with his medical recommendation and gave it to Ms. Denise Sherman upon his return to the truck. He was only supposed to stay a few weeks, but it turned into a few months. He became drunk and belligerent and was causing undo hardship upon the family. Finally, one night, he exposed himself in front of both myself and my wife(child was at aunts house on this night) and I told him to get the hell out of my house and to not come back. I started getting phone calls from him threatening to kidnap my child. “I will kidnap your child and I will do it legally. I will have him taken into Foster Care and I will gain custody and you will never see your son again.” Feb. 18th came, I had forgotten all about Ms. Sherman at this point, and a lady from Los Angeles County DCFS was at my door to investigate a complaint. She told me that if I did not let her in, that she would be back with the police to force her way in. I was anxious to let here in anyway, forgetting our previous, short, encounter and hopeful for getting Mr. Carvajal in trouble for false reports. She told us about how they could help us as a family and called a TDM. On the 25th of Feb. 2009 we had a TDM. The facilitator was agitated, saying that he did not know why we were here. She tried to destroy both of us, but failed. They told her that she did NOT have grounds to remove the child. They suggested counseling and we agreed and signed off on a case plan that our son was to remain in the home. Within 5 of her working days, she cancelled to appointments with the family (I have phone records showing me contacting her). On March 4th, I had a long conversation on the phone with her concerning what steps I could take to be a better father. I interrupted her and she snapped at me. After I got of the phone with her, I remembered her as I had interrupted her that day(the 24th of Dec.) in the truck and she snapped at me exactly the same. I called and asked for her super, but he was off on that day, so I spoke to the shift supervisor, Ms. Sonia Polain and I told her that I new the worker from other outside associations. She told me that she was going to advise her that she was removed from the case and that she would call me back. I am not for sure who called how back, but we spoke and she advised me that Ms. Sherman had been removed from the case. The next day, Ms. Sherman went to Hesby Oaks school and abducted my son, which released him to a business card! No warrant, no court order, but a friggin’ business card! They drug us into court with nothing, but it is THEIR COURT, built to protect THEM and to cover up their wrong doings! The public defender refused to use the big book of evidence we had against them, refused to get a court order to get the record of the incoming calls on the 24th and committed perjury by omission. The judge practiced medicine from the bench and despite my wife’s medical recommendation for medical marijuana ordered us to undergo random drug testing. Our child was released to the care of his aunt and we were given supervised visits. We went to adjudication, NO ONE testified. We wanted our son to take the stand as they lied and said our son stated that we would beat him with a shoe or a belt when he was really bad. We do not believe in spanking and my son has told me that NO ONE has ever hit him with a shoe or a belt. They also claimed that my second grade spelled “Champagne” for them correctly. A word he learned from the bottles at these alleged outrageous parties I supposedly took him to. The judge found us guilt of general neglect, due to the fact that there was marijuana in our systems at the time of the incident. This in spite of the fact that my wife was prescribed marijuana and that I was a certified care giver which gave me the legal right to posses up to 3.5 ounces and there is no law against smoking. They gave us our child back, after a month of captivity and ordered six months of DCFS supervision. Part of this was Family Preservation, which came in telling us how they could help us to get a dinette set and so forth. I advised them that it would be in the best interest of the family to catch up on the back rent. Six months later I was evicted as they never made the payment that they had promised. I showed the judge, Judge Daviann Mitchell, the paperwork that Family Pres., LA DCFS, and the management company had all signed off on agreeing that the county was going to issue a payment. The judge, of course could not find the county that got her retroactivity immunity for receiving illegal payments from the county and that I now owe 5,???.?? to the management company despite violations of ordinances and of serving properly. This is a big cluster f&^k designed to destroy the innocent and exonerate those who abuse children and their families.
we3@thepatterson3.com
March 30th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
I want to say that Dcfs are a bunch of rapist perjurors liars who manipulate the court system and take you to their dirty private court that they run! if in the beggening of the TDM meetings you dont agree to sign a case plan = right your rights away and do what they say or they take your children away, then the facilitators there harras you and coerce you and duress you into singing your rights basically doing a plea bargain with them off court.! so Dcfs claims they are doing this for the best interest of the child when they removed them from homes of good parents that only dicipline their children and are called abusers , but then they move them to foster homes were the children are raped,murder,abused,treated like trash and raped again but leave them at those places because your children are what the state calls pure gold! People need to stand up against DCFS specially La County and start protesting gather up and start fighting this dirty corrupted DCFS workers why is nt any agency or persecutors going after DCFS SOCIAL WORKERS WHO violate the laws huh! tell me why not! no one is above the law!!
May 11th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Help…
May 11th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Last month the primary CSW entered our home & questioned our four children for hours. Then she questioned me & asked if I would sign docs stating that we refused to accept any & all financial aid from their entities. Then she asked me if I had a gun & where was it? I tried to explain that it was in storage. The CSW said the gun was in our van & that she needed to conduct a search of the van. So lead her to our van & she searched the interior, no weapon was discovered. So back to the condo & more investigative questioning of the kids several more hours. Then she reported that I was being accused of child abuse & our four kids are going into placement! Well I hit the roof because all of it was a lie to begin with. My two youngest fabricated a story that I was beating them & had a gun! So this prompted the CSW to go over aboard. Immediately I put the CSW out of our home, & she called the police stating that I wasn’t cooperating & that I had a gun! So you know what happens next, law enforcement is looking for me. The next day I met with two special investigators, one from the law enforcement & the other from DCFS. After four hours of interviews they released the kids to me & said that it was all fabricated by my ten year old son. The DCFS investigator instructed me to report to the Southern Division of DCFS the very next morning @ 0800 hours. Upon arrival the next morning the questioning started all over again. I signed a civil rights form & entered a meting with their dept. heads. They still took my children & ordered me into court the next week. The judge could make up her mind & wouldn’t look in my direction. A month prior the same judge commended me greatly for the way that I had taken care of the kids. So here I am without my kids. My two younger kids that lied have since corrected their stories. All I want is my kids back…… can anyone out their help me before I have to take action?
* No weapon was found.
* I have no arrest record.
* The CSW saw & overheard my son coaching his sister.
* The special investigator & Law enforcement quickly saw that these charges were false.
* DCFS needs to either charge me or release my kids.
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:57 pm
we will like to join any class action lawsuit against DCFS please look into our story google Marshall vs. the county of los angele. then for our current problems with DCFS find me on myspace search for abra marshall in hawthorne California
May 22nd, 2010 at 1:03 pm
The Marshall’s vs. County of Los Angeles
I Frank, Ola and Abra Marshall have encountered very serious problems from the County of Los Angeles DCFS (Department of Children Family Services)
On December 19, 2008, around 8am, DCFS came to our house with the Police and tore down our front door and broke every door in our house that was closed or locked such as; bedroom doors. Closet doors, garage doors etc. They removed four children from the home. The police tazed my daughter and arrested her because she was on the phone with our lawyers.
DCFS removed the four children because someone that did not like us did not even know us very well and did not come to our house called in lies against us and our teenage son. The reason DCFS bought the lie, was the fact that we had filed and won a law suit against them for similar false allegations and problems. (You can refer to the prior law suit on line. Go to Google and search Marshall vs. the County of Los Angeles and get details of DCFS harassment towards us and motive to retaliate by detaining the four children in our home)
We want our four children back home right away and we want DCFS to leave us alone. DCFS have no proof of any of the allegations they have con cocked against us. We have proof that we are innocent of all the allegations they have against us.
What happen to the burden of proof? DCFS did this to us and many other families with only allegations. We have close to 5000 signatures of people at children’s court that have encountered the same or similar problems that we have. We would like DCFS to be trained better to properly investigate the referrals that they deal with. The parents need better protection against these types of Laws. As of today (05/20/2010) they still have not gave us our children back and we did not receive a fair trial. Can someone please help us?
July 29th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
my two daughters were removed from my care after my employer kidnapped them and he called the police stating that he found them left alone. the fact is that he held us hostage and took my medication for my seizures and locked it up in a file cabinet. he caught me trying to escape “with” my children and attacked me causing me to go into a seizure and passed out on the floor. while i was out he “kidnapped” my children. when the police arrived i asked for medical attention due to having a seizure “a gran mal seizure” and they refused me my right to medical attention. they then interrogated me, and told me i would never see my children again. then even after i told them he threatened to kill me and my children, the “investigator” and a police officer drove me back to my employer and stated, “i did as you asked, and i brought her back to you as well”, the “investigator”, took my luggage out of the trunk of the police car and handed it to “my employer”, then opened up the back door, and he literally grabbed me by my right arm and forcefully removed me from the police car and shoved me into “my employers” residence. this occured in april 2002 and even though i worked with dcfs, they refused to follow the “court order” and refused my right to visitations to my children and the youngest was breastfed at the time they removed them. the childrens bureau where the foster/adoptive parents went through had called me and requested that i be present during an evaluation with the children and different doctors, such as psychiatrist. that was the 1st time i had seen them since they were removed. the 2nd and last time i was allowed to see them was when both foster/adoptive parents came to court, they had both my daughters with them, that was january 2003. it is now july 2010 and i have not seen or heard from my children. i miss and love them so much. i pray that god can turn this around and reunify my family. my daughters have 3 more sisters and 1 brother and i hope one day we can all be together as god ment it to be. i will keep each and every family going through what i did in our prayers because i know first hand how it feels. pray and never stop thinking about all the good memories that you hold in your heart of your precious gift(s) from god.
July 29th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
i am taking actions against los angeles county dcfs ubove and beyond what they could ever handle. may god be with them. email me at tatyana8607@gmail.com
July 29th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
i know for a FACT that dcfs “SOLD MY CHILDREN”! BIZARRE???? NO IT IS AS TRUE AS GOD IS OUR SAVIOR! my children were 8 1/2 months old & 19 months old when they were taken. those are good ages for people looking to “BUY” children. Mental Anguish, is the least of their worries about what i have for them. GOD, gave me the gift to birth those children and to raise them. he did not give me a gift so precious to in return give them to strangers to raise. my oldest begged me to take her home with me both times we seen each other after they were “KIDNAPPED”
July 29th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
I believe that my daughters may also be in a home with child molestors. On my first visit with my children, the foster dad took my youngest daughter and sexually massaged/rubbed her buttocks in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. I hope that I never have to catch him alone somewhere because he will pay for what he did to my children. If anyone so much as looks in a purverted way towards my children, they will suffer the consequences. The bad thing about the people who have my children, they play a bad role of being “Christians”. Descusting, purverted individuals will get what is coming to you, B U R N T I N H E L L! God sees everything, don’t ever forget that!!!