The LA Times reports today that records acquired by reporters Garrett Therolf and Kim Christensen, through a California Public Records Act request, showed that fourteen children died of abuse and neglect in Los Angeles County last year despite the fact that each of those kids came from that had supposedly “been under the scrutiny of child welfare officials”
The family of a boy who died of multiple skull fractures had been reported 25 times to the Department of Children and Family Services and the mother had a known history of methamphetamine use. In other families, children died within months or even one day after a social worker’s last visit.
[SNIP]
All told, the records show, 32 children in the county died in 2008 from abuse and neglect, including physical assault, drowning and malnourishment. Eighteen of the children were in families that had never been in contact with the family services agency.But the other 14 families should have been well-known to child welfare officials, based on previous referrals and investigations. For whatever reasons, many of the earlier allegations were not substantiated
In case after case the reports acquired by the Times details horrific suffering on the part of children who should have been protected.
Agency officials told the reporters that they “lack adequate resources to handle daunting caseloads.”
(By the way, this is an excuse I’d buy that a little more if I hadn’t spent the last two weeks in a state of fury while I reviewed documents and notes from a 2004 case where DCFS took the time to snatch six kids from decent parents who happened to be former gang members whom the local cops disliked.)
Good for the LA Times for bringing these cases to light.
Now it remains to be seen what the County of Los Angeles going to do with the horrific findings.
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PS: AND SPEAKING OF DANGEROUS….More on the dangers of Men’s Central Jail either later today or first thing tomorrow.
It seems that there is a palpable lack of morale, respect, and responsibility in many of the social service agency’s of LA. A close family member, who has worked for over thirty five years in DCFS, Adult and Children’s Probation, Social Services, tells me that although there are wonderful programs and intervention situations available to clients in need, that the case loads they carry nowadays make it almost impossible to spend adequate time and energy where it is needed the most.
It also seems that despite some very caring and concerned County representatives, a large number of these supposed care facilatators and officers couldn’t really give a rats ass about what bureaucratic Catch 22 red tape and bullshit their clients get caught up in. I hear these horror stories of DCFS and Probation Dept reps not willing to make a simple phone call or walk down the hall to speak to someone in order to prevent some poor soul or child from spending unneeded time in jail or juvenile hall, sometimes an innocent child being left in harms way.
Management and Supervisory officials being incompetent ass kissers and only concerned with budgets and career advancement, Probation officers and DCFS reps who are burned out, unconcerned about anything but their refinanced, close to foreclosure, homes in Canyon Country, or Corona, the BMW or Escalade payments, wondering and stressing over what will happen if the ax starts to fall and there are lay offs or salary cuts.
Meanwhile the children and others in need are just shuffled around with their paperwork, forgotten, ignored, and sometimes even despised by the very people who are supposed to be helping them.
Are we witnessing another MLK Hospital type melt down at the Social Service’s level?
Agency officials told the reporters that they “lack adequate resources to handle daunting caseloads.â€Â
Yeah, government agencies always have problems because the taxpayers don’t turn over all of their pay to them. It’s never about incompetent and lazy government workers. Fire those who don’t do their jobs and hire some of the people out there who are out of work and will do the job correctly.
With this economy, the government has a golden opportunity to replace bad workers with good ones. But, it won’t, and the kids will continue to suffer as a result. How can government help anyone when it can’t fix itself?
Bleeding with Irony
The two posts today has me bleeding with Irony
One government agency (DCFS) is criticized for neglecting its responsibility to project our children after repeated warnings and suspicious events.
Then and then in the next post another government agency (FBI) is criticized for heeding numerous warning and suspicious events surrounding CAIR in the USA.
http://www.txnd.uscourts.gov/judges/hlf2.html
People should not talk about DCFS social workers until they walk in their shoes. It is a difficult job and not just anybody can do it. Society and especially the LA Times act like social workers are suppose to know that the child is going to get kill. Some parents below average in parenting and they do what the court orders them to do for example parenting classes. But, if a social worker would ask a parent what they have learned, most parents would not get their kids back because of their inability to grasp information. DCFS is the type of business that is “dam if you do, dam if you don’t”. If you detain, you are bad. If you don’t detain, then you are bad. DCFS has had a history of taking children away and know that they are trying to work with the families to try to get their children back, the LA Times can write an article to scrutinize DCFS. There are over 10,000 children in foster care versus 14 who died…I say social workers are doing a very good job or parents are deciding not to kill their children…let LA Times investigate that…
just got word today that one of our former foster children was killed in their adoptive placement (purposefully vague wrt gender as we’ve been threatened about making this info known). we wanted to adopt this child and were told that we would be able to until the child’s worker decided that we weren’t jumping through her hoops well enough. six months in the ‘forever home’ and the child is dead a week before turning three.
who will ever hold Dcfs accountable?????
rest in peace MK. we will call your heartname when we get to heaven! we will keep fighting for kids while we’re still here on earth!
Bresson Fan, will you please email me privately and tell me more about this?
I am so feed up with this Agencys bs and lies,This agencys focus on destroying good familys and fail to protect the ones that really need the help,They focus on poor people who have no money to afford a good lawyer like black,paisas mexicans. But you hardly see an asian child or a european child on foster care,why! because This people have money to afford a good attorney and because they are not cought in custudy battles as black people seem to use this agencys to hurt each other. CPS CSW are part of misconduct and in other reports they steal money from their agencys that is meant to go to the children.
Despite more than two decades of repeated investigations by the San Diego County Grand Jury of misconduct by the County of San Diego Child Welfare Services (aka San Diego CPS) agency, the abusive agency and its illegal and harmful actions continue unabated. Safeguards to fix errors and abuses have been perverted into meaningless mechanisms to cover up wrong-doing and insulate the County of San Diego and individual social workers from criminal prosecution and civil litigation. The agency is unrelenting in its refusals to correct its own problems, and continues to run roughshod over the law, civil rights, and best interests of children. The County of San Diego and its derelict Board of Supervisors also avoid taking necessary actions to correct the problems.
Two reports have been released in 2008 and 2009 that indicate how San Diego CPS frequently:
•Removes children from homes without revealing the reasons
•Fails to document reasons for CPS actions in writing
•Fails to provide written communications and instructions to parents
•Claims to courts and others to have communicated in writing to parents, but no such evidence of this alleged written communication could be found by the Grand Jury. This implies that CPS social workers lied and/or perjured. This is consistent with past findings in previous Grand Jury investigations that CPS social workers routinely lie and perjure to the detriment of children and parents.
•Fails to objectively and competently investigate complaints regarding CPS and its social workers after children are removed from homes.
•Uses the removal of children from homes on inadequately investigated allegations as an excuse to stop further investigation.
CPS social workers do not record interviews and refuse to allow recordings of interviews when people request to make such recordings. Based upon these Grand Jury reports, statements from parents who have been abused by CPS, and documents in CPS case files, it appears that this conduct occurs for the following reasons:
•Social workers do not want to be held accountable for getting facts straight, so they are intent on covering up original physical evidence except for that evidence that they can control and manipulate as they see fit.
•Social workers want to be able to bias reports and findings in any way they see fit, the facts be damned. They do this via biased choice of words, false implications and statements that would leave an objective reader of a report believing things that are not true, intentional or seriously negligent false statements, and distortions and fabrications of statements of others. They omit mention of their own lying and manipulations and abusive conduct. Once they have “documented†a case with inaccurate, biased, and defamatory misinformation in their self-serving and biased manner, then there is no original source material upon which abused families can rely upon to correct the systematic misinformation promulgated by CPS. This then functions as an excuse for why they will not reopen a biased and seriously flawed investigation.
•Social workers do not want recordings of their verbal statements because they frequently lie, make inflammatory remarks, exhibit blatant disregard for the law and safety of children, show evident sexism and bias particularly against fathers and men, and commit psychological abuses and use unwarranted threats against parents to manipulate and control them.
•Social workers want to be able to manipulate 3rd parties contacted during the course of investigations to produce false “evidence†to be used against parents whom they have already decided with prejudice to target for deprivation of civil rights, suspension or termination of custody, or other unjustifiable actions.
•Social workers and the County of San Diego want to avoid prosecution and civil litigation for violation of the US Constitution and Federal Civil Rights legislation. If proper documentation of their actions and words and those of others were kept, it would significantly assist families abused by CPS in criminal prosecutions and law suits against individual social workers and the County of San Diego
Child protective services are corrupted and for the people who defend them its 1 of you against 10009504903904309340909430909458098 OF US WHO SAY THEY ARE TRASH CORRUPTED AND NOW THEY ARE PUT ON BLAST! 1 child who dies in foster care is way way to many. its liKe saying ooh its oK this murder guy only Killed only 1 childed not 20 liKe the other guy! whats the diffrence they both Killed so this agency fails to do their job! when they taKe 430939 children from good parents! for screaming at their child, for diciplining them, because of custudy battles, because you got a mother who has 2 jobs and cant afford proper baby sitter for her 15 year old teenagers then she is a bad parent! shut ur mouth up! this agencys maKe money from our children this agencys dont care if 1 child dies or 1000 as long as they get money and are not accountable for their actions instead of admitting their mistaKe they say ooh this is what happens when we dont get bonuses for our social worKers! I say fire all this SUPERVISORS and crooKed social worKers and retrain and rehire new worKers and maKe sure this worKers are liable for their actions so that they can be honest and truthfull and would do anything they can to protect the children if not pay for their actions! this agencys are trash and run by females who were cheated by their husbands or boyfriends and they hate man! but over all hate our children.Today is this child and his family ,and tigerwoods family tomorrow it could be your children ! then what you are going to asK for help as well. RONALD REGAN said! goverment cant solve peoples problems!Goverment is the Problem!
All those who have negative comments. Please tell us how you save children from there parents. Keep in mind that social workers are not mind readers or psychics. Why don’t we put the parents on blast. Who really did kill the children? Social workers or parents? Can anyone name a child who has been saved in the DCFS system? I can. Me!!!! Focus on the great things social workers do everyday. They saved me from abuse, neglect, and torture. They provided a safe place for me and my siblings sent me to school and made me a great individual in this society. Sure they made mistakes but not like my mother and father. Never like them!!!!!
Hi, thanks to all of you who get the fact that social workers are people and as a DCFS social worker; I can tell you that there is always a risk because we can not control situations;we are not God. Sorry.
Honestly most parents comply with court orders long enought for court to return child (fyi the judge decides orders not SW and the judge goes by strict laws) . Once court returns child we must legally return child to the home and sometimes that is when the parent ” stops being good.”
Also often times the judges go against SW recommendations ( has happened to me many a times), it’s pretty much out of our hands at that point; yet if something were to happen to the child people might still point the finger at me and not even realize that judge did not follow recommendation. The bottom line is that there are so many people and circumstances involved in the decision processes and so many potential riks; so it’ really unrealistic to somehow pin it all on one person. The good news: there are far more children that are protected then hurt. I think society needs to be responsible as a whole and not try to pass the buck to a government agency. Especially, if you proclaim a religious faith. Have you considered being a foster parent yourself or volunteering your time to mentor a youth? adoption? becoming a social worker?
I think that would be more productive.
also visit http://www.fightcps.com and http://www.AmericanFamilyRightsAssociation.com
FI deleted all the rest of your comments because all you did was swear and call people vile names. If you have something to say about DCFS, you are welcome to say it but you must say it here in a civil fashion. Thank you.