LA COUNTY SUPES OFFICIALLY APPROVE JUDGE MICHAEL NASH AS LA’S NEW CHILD WELFARE CZAR
On Tuesday, in a 4-1 decision, the LA County Board of Supervisors officially appointed Judge Michael Nash as the county’s child welfare czar.
Starting in January, Judge Nash will take over as head of the county’s Office of Child Protection, a position recommended 18 months ago by a blue ribbon commission convened to jumpstart much-needed reforms in the county’s child welfare system.
“I’m humbled by the fact that you’ve come to me and asked me to tackle this really important work,” Nash told the board members.
Nash also told the Supes he was anxious to work with them to “help our child protection system here in Los Angeles County—if not achieve its true potential in how we help children and families—come a lot closer than we are today.”
Nash’s experience includes serving as the presiding judge of LA County’s juvenile court. Before that, Nash served as a dependency court judge. (Read about Nash’s efforts to bring transparency and accountability to the children’s court system, here, and DCFS, here.)
“When I first became judge of the juvenile court in 1997,” Nash continued. “I pledged that I would do everything I could to foster greater communication, cooperation, and coordination among all of those entities that work with children and families in Los Angeles County. This position requires that. And I expect to hit the ground running and do exactly the same thing, and hopefully we’ll have some really positive results.
The final decision to hire Nash followed months of delays and deliberation.
The lone dissenter, Supervisor Don Knabe issued a statement Tuesday, saying, “Change takes time and we certainly have more to do. What I would hope the County gets out of this lengthy process is someone who will work with the Department and help them continue to be successful. I would be sorely disappointed if all we get are more reports and more unsolicited criticism. Our most vulnerable children deserve better.”
Over at the Chronicle of Social Change, Daniel Heimpel has more on the story, which includes a few rumors and other issues Nash will face as he heads into the new office. Here’s how it opens:
Despite swirling rumors about the potential fallout of Los Angeles County’s Tuesday 4-1-vote to hire Judge Michael Nash as its director of child protection, key players in child welfare and county government do not see it that way.
Top of these rumors was that Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) Director Philip Browning would step down if Nash were selected to head the Office of Child Protection (OCP.)
“Don’t believe all the rumors you may hear,” Browning said in an email. “I have always had a good personal relationship with Judge Nash.”
“I imagine the rumors were generated because as I recall Judge Nash was frustrated with the increase in child detentions a few years ago and believed that more children should remain at home and made comments to the news media. I have always said that children should remain in their own home if that can be done safely. Our highest priority is child safety.”
Another bit of gossip was that outgoing OCP Interim Director Fesia Davenport had grown frustrated about the lengthy hiring process of the permanent director and had withdrawn her name from consideration.
“I had heard the speculation,” Davenport said in an interview. “What I have told people is that if we sit around speculating all day what will happen, who is watching the front door? What we really need at this point in time is to continue moving in the same direction.”
Further, some sources had suggested that Davenport was next in line to lead DCFS in the event that Browning did indeed leave his post. Instead, Davenport said that she is focused on maintaining a high profile in central county government, and is using her last days as OCP director to illustrate how the office can be an effective tool in driving countywide attention to keeping children safe.
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TEEN’S JOURNEY FROM “WORST KID EVER” TO PROBATION OFFICER’S “BEST KID [HE’S] HAD IN 26 YEARS” THROUGH EDUCATION PROGRAM AT JUVIE PROBATION CAMP
The LA Times’ Teresa Watanabe has a not-to-be-missed longread about Stephanie Valdivia, a teenager once considered a “throwaway” by some, who turned her life around through the Road to Success Academy (RTSA) education program at a juvenile probation camp in Santa Clarita.
After stealing almost $30,000 worth of jewelry and clothes from an elderly one-armed woman, 17-year-old Stephanie found herself locked up at Camp Joseph Scott, a facility for LA’s more serious female juvenile offenders. Camp Scott was Stephanie’s last chance to rehabilitate in the juvenile justice system—a merciful act on the part of a LA County Superior Court judge who denied prosecutors’ efforts to have her tried as an adult.
Stephanie, for whom English was a second language, had struggled in school since kindergarten. She also had a history of serious alcohol and drug abuse dating back to age nine. When Stephanie’s probation officer saw her records and met her for the first time, he thought she was “the worst kid ever,” and asked to have her reassigned.
But things changed for Stephanie when started at the camp’s Road to Success Academy, an award-winning alternative education program that provides hands-on learning focusing on “beauty, power, hope, transformation and new beginnings.” At Camp Scott, learning was suddenly fun. The students built miniature bridges and solar-powered rocket ships to learn math and went on a virtual field trip to the Museum of Tolerance to learn about the Holocaust. Stephanie, once a chronic F-student, started to rake in the A’s and B’s. She improved her reading by five grade levels and her math by six grade levels and graduated high school during her year in the RTSA program.
After witnessing Stephanie’s triumphs and turnaround, probation officer even called her “the best kid I’ve had in 26 years.”
The education program has had such tremendous success at Camp Scott and the adjacent girls Camp Kenyon Scudder, that LA County Office of Education is now in the process of rolling out RTSA at other LA probation camps.
But Stephanie’s reentry back into her neighborhood, near to old friends still caught up in drugs, has been far from an easy transition.
Here’s a clip from Watanabe’s story (but go over to the LA Times for the rest of the story and for the excellent pictures chronicling Stephanie’s journey by photojournalist Barbara Davidson):
Stephanie was stoned on crystal meth when she walked through an unlocked screen door in North Hollywood in May 2013, confronted the one-armed, elderly woman inside and stole nearly $30,000 in jewelry and clothes.
She was also implicated in a residential burglary that day and, a week later, was arrested for burglary at K-Mart.
Stephanie was 17 with a long history of problems. Boozing since she was 9, then on to weed, ecstasy, cocaine, mushrooms, acid, methamphetamine. A Sun Valley High report card riddled with flunking grades and truancies. And a rap sheet of burglaries reaching back to 2010.
The Juvenile Court judges had given her plenty of chances. They had placed her on probation. They had put her under house arrest. They had sent her away to a drug rehabilitation group home. But she had failed to turn her life around.
So when Stephanie got caught for the North Hollywood crimes, L.A. prosecutors had had enough. They moved to try her as an adult, which could have meant years in state prison.
Eileen Pasternak, the North Hollywood robbery victim, also wanted tough action.
“What she did was horrific,” Pasternak said. “I wanted them to throw the book at her.”
But L.A. County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Schuit decided to give Stephanie a final shot at rehabilitation in the juvenile system. In September 2013, he sentenced her to a year at Camp Joseph Scott, a probation facility for girls enclosed by barbed-wire fences amid sagebrush and rolling canyons in Santa Clarita.
Stephanie would be entering a system forced into dramatic change after federal and local investigations found widespread mistreatment and neglect of incarcerated youth.
Since county officials settled a class-action lawsuit involving one of the camps five years ago, the education office has rolled out an award-winning school model that transformed camp instruction, among other reforms. The nation’s largest probation department, meanwhile, is attempting what Chief Jerry Powers calls a sweeping “culture shift” from a disciplinary boot-camp style to a therapeutic approach.
But would it work for Stephanie?
http://youtu.be/gOKyzpQOd6s
OPRAH INTERVIEWS BRYAN STEVENSON SUPER SOUL SUNDAY
Superstar civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson appeared on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, and we didn’t want you to miss it. Stevenson talks with Oprah about his book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, his own journey to mercy, and his work to win freedom for innocent death row inmates and others who have experienced injustice in the justice system through his non-profit, the Equal Justice Initiative.
Watch the full episode here.
http://youtu.be/C_zawTMBo9Y