Reforms to Los Angeles County’s child welfare system have been slow, two county supervisors said Tuesday, while the Board of Supervisors’ newest members called for more analysis of a plan to expand medical care for potential child abuse victims.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas expressed frustration with the pace.
“It baffles me that we haven’t moved any more quickly,” Ridley-Thomas said.
His remarks came in response to a report by the transition team for the Office of Child Protection, which has been pushing to implement recommendations made by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Child Protection in April.
The Board of Supervisors has been working to recruit a child protection czar to lead reforms and drive collaboration across county departments. However, the transition team’s co-chair said plenty of changes could be made even before that person is hired.
Co-chair Leslie Gilbert-Lurie listed a handful of reforms that she said would cost “not one dollar.”
For example, a mission statement to clarify the board’s objectives would help “send a signal” of commitment to candidates for the post of child welfare czar. Gilbert-Lurie warned that the county was in competition for talent with other agencies.
Gilbert-Lurie also pressed the board to target services for children under the age of 5, increase payments to relatives who act as caregivers and more regularly review departments’ efforts to meet child safety goals,
Overall, she said, the board should get more directly involved in the push for reforms, arguing that pressure by the board would “move things along exponentially faster and more effectively.”
Ridley-Thomas had hoped to advance a plan today to expand resources at county medical clinics, also called hubs, that serve children at risk of neglect or abuse.
The hubs handle exams aimed at identifying child abuse, but the commission recommended more comprehensive services. That would include medical screening for all children going into foster care placement and children under the age of one whose cases were being investigated by DCFS.
Supervisor Don Knabe called moves to expand services at the medical hubs “long overdue.”
Gilbert-Lurie said she was “optimistic … that the pace of needed reform will increase” with the efforts of new Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis. Both Kuehl and Solis stressed the need for reforms while campaigning for the job of supervisor last year.
However, both said more questions needed to be answered before taking action.
“The hubs aren’t the cure-all for everything,” Solis said. She cited increased staffing and breaking down silos between departments as critical and also urged that experts from outside the county be engaged in reform efforts.
Kuehl offered to draft a mission statement and spearhead coordination with state legislators looking to hike payments to relatives acting as foster parents.
“I think the public confidence in what we’re doing is very low,” Kuehl said.
Kuehl said there wasn’t consensus on what resources should be expanded or whether services should be directed at children under 5, even younger, or a broader group of children in need.
“I don’t think we’ve really made those choices,” Kuehl told her colleagues.
Department of Health Services Director Dr. Mitchell Katz, also a co- chair of the transition team, said there was agreement on 90% of the issues related to expanding medical hub services, including that the clinics should be child-friendly spaces staffed with experts readily available to offer appointments. But he agreed that questions such as where the hubs should be located and what groups of children should be given priority had not been resolved.
The board directed Katz to report back next week with further analysis, including details of a proposal to pair public health nurses with social workers handling child abuse cases.
— City News Service