Removing Barriers to Family Reunification in LA County

On Tuesday, July 23, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion focused on removing barriers to family reunification for parents and their children in foster care. 

The insurmountable barrier of incarceration

The motion, by Supervisors Hilda Solis and Janice Hahn, focuses particularly on helping parents who are incarcerated and thus, unable to participate in court-ordered reunification programs. Parents in jail and prison are far more likely to lose their legal parental rights than their peers in the community, due to these barriers and to the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which directs courts to terminate parental rights when a child has been in foster care for 15 out of the last 22 months.

Solis and Hahn cited a 2012 study, which found that incarcerated mothers were 65% less likely than non-incarcerated mothers to reunify with their children. Incarcerated fathers were 75% less likely to reunite with their kids. 

Several years ago, WLA interviewed mothers whom the LA County Office of Diversion and Reentry (ODR) had pulled out of jail through its Maternal Health Program so that they could give birth and care for their babies while living in supportive housing.

One woman had lost her legal parental rights to her older child, a toddler. The court, the mother said, had proceeded with the termination process after her child had been in foster care for 15 months, even though the mother was incarcerated, and unable to make progress on her case plan. Her right to raise her daughter was terminated the same day ODR pulled her out of jail. She did not receive notice that the hearing was to take place that day, she said.

“Parents only get a set amount of time to complete their court-ordered programs to reunify with their children,” Christina Curtis, an attorney with Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers, wrote in a comment submitted to the board. “However, most, if not all, county jail facilities do not provide classes or the programs necessary to allow parents to begin making progress in their case plan. So, while our incarcerated parents wait to begin their classes, the time set for them to reunify ticks on. It’s not a surprise that most of our incarcerated parents never reunify with their children.”

Difficult case plans

LA County’s Department of Children and Family Services generally requires parents to juggle a large number of requirements at the same time — including drug testing, treatment programs, counseling, and other programs, while attending regular court hearings and scheduled visits with their children — in order to remain in compliance and on track to reunite with their kids. These programs generally come with fees families can’t afford, and some occur in the middle of a standard workday, making it incredibly difficult for parents to stay employed and fulfill the terms of their DCFS plans. 

Based on dozens of interviews WitnessLA has conducted with DCFS-involved families, the system shows little mercy for small missteps. Missing a class or a weekly drug test because you’ll get fired if you leave work, or because it’s far from home and your car won’t start, can have a drastically negative impact on your case. 

One mother told WLA that DCFS gave her the wrong address for a program they required her to attend more than 50 miles from her house. A loved one gave her a ride to the first meeting, but when they arrived, no one was there. DCFS directed to the correct location for later meetings, she said, but this and other minor errors over a period of two and a half years contributed to a judge’s decision to terminate the mother’s parental rights forever.

Addressing the obstacles

In October 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 954, which barred courts from considering parents noncompliant with the terms of a case plan if there’s evidence that the parents can’t afford the fees associated with court-ordered programs or if participating would create a financial hardship. The bill also required courts to inquire about a family’s ability to pay when issuing orders in dependency court. 

A month earlier, in September, the LA County Supervisors directed DCFS and other relevant county departments to come up with ways to reduce financial barriers for families engaged in Family Reunification (when children are in foster care and the family is working to reunite) or Family Maintenance (when DCFS is monitoring parents whose children remain at home).

The resulting report back, in April 2024, included recommendations for implementing AB 954, including directing staff to issue “emergency funding requests” for services not already covered by government funding. “DCFS will analyze all emergency funding requests to identify service access gaps so that those areas can be prioritized as ongoing funding is established for FR and FM services,” the report stated. DCFS could also conduct internal surveys and community focus groups to determine gaps in services, improve MediCal utilization, and work to maximize court appearances. 

Solis and Hahn’s new motion directs DCFS to begin implementing the recommendations in the April report, and to send the supervisors a progress report every 90 days. 

In their motion, the supervisors also pointed to a critical lack of information about DCFS-involved parents in LA County’s jails.

“It is unclear as to how many incarcerated parents are in the County jails; of which how many are held pre-trial; what reunification, visitation, and FR legal aid programs and services are available; whether incarcerated parents are able to and have received court-ordered visitations; how many are not able to complete court mandated FR programs due to the unavailability of programs in the County jails; the impact to their reunification progress and system-involved children; and what financial supports exist for them to be able to participate in FR and FM programs,” Solis and Hahn wrote.

The motion directs DCFS and the sheriff’s department to return to the board in 90 days with answers to these questions. The motion also calls for a plan for funding and providing the court-mandated classes, programs, and services to incarcerated parents, and for county leaders to identify potential partnerships with community-based organizations that could offer programs and resources to help parents keep their parental rights and relationships with their children while incarcerated, and ultimately reunite with their kids. 

“To reduce generational trauma and systems involvement, in instances where it is safe and low risk, the County must take a position to provide the resources needed so that children in the child welfare system can go back to their parents and family,” the supervisors wrote in their motion. “Unfortunately, what exists are financial burdens and inaccessibility and unavailability of the programs wanted or needed, especially for those who are incarcerated.”