Joshua Allen Online

On Child Abuse, Preventable Deaths, and Profits

The Business of Child Abuse

By Joshua Allen

The death of a foster child like everything in life is a combination of a thousand little things, any one of which had it changed, would have resulted in a much different outcome.  The issue though is preventable changes.  Things that competence, or decency, or forethought, which would have prevented the single terrible factor that led to the death of a child.

There is usually enough blame to go around when such tragedies occur.  A birth parent, a related adult, or even a foster parent may murder a child, or cause that child to take their own life.  Yet if signs were ignored by police or social workers or doctors, which allowed that adult continued proximity to the child, then something beyond the morality of the perpetrator has broken down.  And it is these preventable circumstances that are so important for us to learn from.

That is why the cover up, or generously, the obfuscation of child deaths that had some type of contact with DCFS remains such a calamity.  That Jorge Tarin hung himself after several contacts on the same day with DCFS social workers and mental health individuals is unquestioned.

Was the decision to leave Jorge in the home made by command post social workers who were tired and wanted to go home for dinner after a long shift?

We can ask, but surprisingly, the workers may have made a correct decision with limited information.  Information limited because the county had failed to use tablet computers and wireless modems still rotting away in storage.

Honestly we can’t know the conclusions from the internal investigation about whether the DCFS workers were at fault.   That is not the point here.  We do know a child is dead.  More importantly, how many other children are dead that we have yet to learn about?  And yet to learn from?

Thankfully Garrett Therolf and the LA Times legal department has begun the arduous task of slowly prying out information from DCFS for its rightful owners, us, the public, the people paying the taxes and who have a vested interest as decent human beings in assuring such mistakes are learned from.

Yet why must this information be pried from DCFS attorneys?  Why isn’t it readily available with appropriate credentials?  Who is being protected?  Well, I think we know whom.

Greed is also a preventable circumstance that may lead to the death of a child.  Was Viola Vanclief smashed on the head with a hammer by a foster parent left in place (instead of being decertified by the agency or county) because of greed?

Or was it the hapless county or state licensing agency that failed to do its job?   Eventually, private lawsuits will get to some type of answer.  We will never really know.  Sadly, the one thing we do is Viola is dead and she wouldn’t be if a half-dozen or more individuals had done things differently.

Let’s make something clear, a Foster Agency does not determine how long an abused and neglected child will remain in foster care. That is clearly up to the judges and the county.  Agencies do determine which children they will accept, and are highly influential about where that child will be placed.  And as seen above, the ‘where’ can be very important.

An agency has a financial stake in accepting as many children as possible and certifying foster parents quickly.  Mistakes can be made without a motivating factor of greed or profit motive, but the pressure to place as many children as possible is always there.  And let’s be clear, in the opinion of the author, most of these places are filled with hard, sacrificing individuals who just want to somehow help abused children.

The size of an agency determines to a large extent the salaries of the CEO and Administrator.  Don’t let them say differently.  These are non-profits, not ordinary businesses.  However, CEO’s and other involved individuals begin agencies with seed money that is non-reimbursable and because of this, come to think of the agencies as theirs – To do with as they please, cover up their tracks, and keep the financial books ‘in order,’ ready to be inspected by auditors who will renew their annual contract.

Non-profit foster agencies as recently alleged, cannot sell a piece of the business to another individual.   It is not a business, it is a non-profit.  A person cannot invest, effectively purchase seats or voting rights on the board and create a job for themselves.  It is a slippery slope when even well-meaning individuals begin in such a manner.

And to think that foster teens, “happy teens,” appreciate being moved administratively to another agency even if they are staying in the same foster home is a fallacy and a lie.  The foster children and teens know very well they are pawns or more accurately assets which are switched around for the profit and job security of the mover.  Believe me, they know.  If somebody wants to work somewhere else then go, but it’s not the same thing as a lawyer leaving a firm with his clients.

In years past, and, to be clear, in different cases than the above, individuals were allowed to move to the next agency, or accept tax dollars from a foster agency to work as a consultant, when that individual has committed fraud, commingled funds, misused funds, or deliberately lied to enhance personal gain within foster care.

This continues today with some of these same people consulting or even running agencies in a different county.  There is only one rea$son why an agency would pay some of these people a consulting fee, and there is a word for this.  And thankfully, this has begun to be noticed by some of the politicos and media.  Threats and retaliation won’t stop this, we’ve seen it all before.

Working with abused and neglected children is not a right.  Some people think it is.

If you want to know which agencies to be concerned about, just look at whom these individuals and former CEO’s are consulting with.  See if they have gone to another county and received a contract to provide services for abused and neglected children.     See if they are double dipping and getting tax dollar contracts to work full-time in 2-3- or even 4 different locations.  Watch to see who has gotten into trouble at one agency and were able to bring enough children and foster homes to the next to guarantee a job.  Look to see if consulting psychiatrists are paid a huge 6 figure fee, well beyond an industry norm.

Consulting is a great gig in the private sector, nice work if you can get it…consulting for a foster care agency after being forced out for deliberately breaking any number of legal or administrative regulations is beyond the pale.

Shop lifts a shirt, go to jail.  Steal a few hundred grand a year… ride it all the way home.  The county might boot you, perhaps, and this is a big perhaps, make you pay back the money from a single year or so, and then that’s it.  Free to go and consult or take that hospital administrative job in Palm Springs.

And after being booted for a couple years of penance you can open up your new agency in the county of Clueless California.

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Joshuaallenonline@gmail.com

Child Abuse, Lies and DCFS: A Dirty Job

The Business of Child Abuse

By Joshua Allen

Article first published as Child Abuse, Lies and DCFS: A Dirty Job on Technorati.

The controversy surrounding the DCFS that last few weeks has begun to take on the form of a freedom of press issue.

Investigators suing the department (make that Trish Ploehn) for racial discrimination have been transferred after making allegations of cover-ups with regards to deaths of children who came into contact  with the department.

I won’t comment on the discrimination case without access to facts, just as I won’t comment on the allegations by Elgin Baylor (who was the longest-serving general manager in the NBA) accusation of racial discrimination towards the owner of the LA Clippers.  But I digress.

When one criticizes the Department of Children and Family services, it is always important to distinguish those critiques from the angry attacks by birth parents with a bone (or worse) to pick with the department.

Indeed one glance at my mail bag these days reveals an awful lot of parents who had their children taken away from them by social workers who hope I will join them on their crusade against the injustice of it all.

More than a few of these communications appear a bit unbalanced, and the writer would be much better off hiring an attorney as well as jumping through whatever hoops the county has set for them to get their children back.

Such ‘hoops’ while received with anger are usually sensible  things such as providing a safe place for the children to live, the parents participation in parenting classes and therapy, and a series of clean drug tests.

The latter, in my experience, has proven especially difficult for some parents.  All too often the parent’s anger is misdirected as their children, who they abused and neglected, languish for months if not years in foster care, usually going to several homes before they are finally through with the system.

Often they believe blame lies with the foster parent, the system, the social worker, the police, or anyone else beyond the reflection in the mirror.  The loser of course as always is the child.

Yes there are infrequent cases of children being improperly detained or placed into inappropriate foster homes but this doesn’t negate the need to have such a system in the first place.

The argument then becomes the degree to which such detention occurs.  In other words, how many children with parents or guardians suspected of abuse or neglect get properly placed into foster care while the county in its slow bureaucratic way determines the best needs of the child?

Some experts accuse the LA Times of spreading a “foster care panic,” causing DCFS to remove many more children than necessary in order to protect the county from law suits stemming from deaths or injuries when left at their homes after contact with social workers.

Other experts attempt to work with DCFS using “solution based journalism” to advocate or design policies which will help heal the deficiencies which too many of us appear so obvious.

That legitimate critique seems limited to self-serving politicians and a few bloggers seems beside the point.

A legitimate journalist can only critique “the system,” as far as presenting facts such as the deaths of abused and neglected children in foster care, or publishing the exorbitant salaries of minimally educated Foster Agency CEO’s who use an uncorrected loophole to enrich themselves at the expense of abused children.

An agency of 6,500 individuals with a budget of billions of dollars each year deserves greater scrutiny than the bleating of Ridley Thomas or Zev Yaroslovsky, the irrational sheiks of unbalanced parents, the quiet cries from the legitimately aggrieved and the road blocked efforts of a LA Times or Daily News.

When DCFS spends so much of its legal resources keeping information hidden from reporters we have a problem.

And as always the loser remains our children.

A Readers Thoughts and Criticisms Regarding the Below Piece on Medication

The Business of Child Abuse

I received a critique on my most recent piece regarding medication and foster children.  Rather than include this under “comments,” I thought them important and deserving enough for their own post.

I have permission from the unnamed writer to paraphrase and combine a number of thoughts.  My own answers to these succinct criticisms are in paragraphs within the piece.

The author makes a number of important points and asks a very good question regarding the suicide of Jorge Tarin, the 11-year-old who hanged himself after several contacts with DCFS and mental health workers.

Below is the combination and paraphrase of these comments.

Joshua Allen       K8WGS6KDV2K8

___________________________________________________

A subject like psychotropic is quite complicated and has many, many entangled issues.  Once a foster child is on a psychotropic, they are on it forever because there is very little follow-up. (Well sometimes…)

Psychotropic medication has serious side-effects that no one talks about, especially for children in which there have been no long-term follow-up studies.

If a child is depressed because he gets placed in foster care and then gets prescribed an antidepressant, how long does he stay on it?  How long does a kid stay on Ritalin?  These drugs and the assumptions underlying their usage dictate that one is on them forever. (Well I’m not sure about that…)

There is also the issue that ALL prescribed medications, particularly psychotropic, robs your body of nutrients and is highly acidic.

The Psychotropic Medication Desk is “manned” by a psychiatrist who reviews all requested authorization for appropriateness.

He or she then sends it to the court for approval if they feel it is appropriate, i.e., that what they put on the request makes medical sense.

If the reviewing psychiatrist approves it, the judge always approves it.  You made it sound like the judge approves all psychotropic medications prescribed by a physician (psychiatrist or otherwise).  (Guilty, oops)

I have seen, but only rarely, a request sent back from the Desk to the prescribing physician for clarification and–in one case–for refusal.

There is a key issue you neglected.  All psychotropic medication is approved for adult use.  But physicians have the privilege of ( Note from Joshua Allen:  I did touch on this with regards to the psychiatrist prescribing a mixture of Seroquel and Abilify see first paragraph below) prescribing for “off-label” usage.

This is where the abuse comes in.  They (psychiatrists) are experimenting with children, some as young as 2 and 3 with this stuff.  And while you touched on it, most of these doctors never interview or observe the child; they just go on what an adult (social worker, foster parent, and teacher) tells them.

You also neglected to mention the mismanagement of psychotropic, the “skull and cross-bones” that have been implemented for some usage, e.g., the warning about suicide rates from prescribing antidepressants when used by teenagers.

Foster kids get moved around so much and lose their medications in their moves.  Sudden stoppage brings about depression and suicidal thoughts–sometimes leading to suicidal thoughts and attempts.

Was the kid that hanged himself (Jorge Tarin) with the jump rope on psychotropic?

(Darn good question!)

Was he prescribed them in the past?  How long ago and how many times?

(Hmmmm)

Foster Children: I’m Okay, You’re Medicated

The Business of Child Abuse

By Joshua Allen

Several years ago there was a foster agency with a high percentage of children on psychotropic medication.  The reason for this was because the agency had on contract with a psychiatrist who would examine foster children brought to the agency by foster parents to determine if the abused and neglected children qualified (medically) for psychotropic medication.

This procedure was terribly convenient for the foster parents and the agency.   It is extremely difficult to get a foster child a timely appointment to see a psychiatrist.  Appointments certainly occur, but psychiatrists who take Medicaid are few and far between.  Add to that the need for Spanish-speaking therapists and you have a problem.

The agency also liked this arrangement because of referrals, (referrals = Money $) from CSW’s who wanted a quick psychiatric evaluation for abused and neglected children they believed would benefit, and importantly, this also allowed social workers to have greater input with the psychiatrist – not a small thing.

The psychiatrist in question (no longer on contract with the agency) had a favorite medication cocktail,  a mixture of Seroquel and Abilify, SSRI’s that are generally prescribed for atypical schizophrenia.  Ahem…

You can read more about the medications here: http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Policymakers_Toolkit&Template=/ContentManagement/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=18971

Now those in the “know” understand this is strong stuff, especially when given to children, especially when combined, and especially when given to children who suffer from behaviors and symptoms such as anger, aggression and depression that are off the generally prescribed usage.

Now the psychiatrist had a perfect right to do this and lacking an MD I won’t get into a debate.  I can and will tell you what the social workers reportedly saw from children on their caseload who were prescribed this cocktail.

In general the mixture performed its intended purpose, aggressive behaviors such as constant screaming, smashing things, and overall defiance decreased dramatically.

Now the rejoinder; “They are overmedicating our children!”   While often true, is lazy to have as a generic fall back.  We must ask, isn’t there more to this?

Are we medicating foster children just to control them? What if the choice is between medication or a locked or restrictive group home, or attendance in a regular school?

A little background:  LA county has a Psychotropic Medication Authorization desk.  Any foster child that is prescribed psychotropic medications (such as antidepressants for depression or Ritalin for ADHD) has paperwork sent by their psychiatrist to this desk where a judge reviews it, rubber stamps it and supposedly sends it to the CSW every 6 months where they happily stick it in a file.

This is one of the most difficult pieces of paper for a social worker to get, and is highly prized because every social worker knows  any child taking meds will be the first to have their file audited by county and state officials when they eventually get around to it.

Recent fatalities such as Viola Vanclief and Jorge Tarin as well as other simmering controversies virtually assure an increase in audits of all children’s files as the state and county are briefly motivated from their government induced stupor to insure no other abused children are in danger from the very system designed to protect them.

But back to the drugs…er medications.

Are we over medicating our foster children?  Probably; but the truth is I have never seen psychiatric prescription nullified by a judge or anyone else.  Recall the phrase I used above?  Rubber stamped?

Once an MD medicates a foster child, it is a done deal as long as the paperwork trail stays intact. Who but another doctor will argue?  And the only time there would be a different doctor is when the foster child is moved very far away, like to another county.

Do our teachers find it helpful to push unruly foster children (usually boys) to be medicated as a condition of staying enrolled at a particular school?

Oh yes.

And the problem here; “Best interest of the child,” is a question with no easy answer.  Further, who will advocate for this child?  The lawyer?  The CSW?  The abusive birth parent?  The foster parent?  You? Me?  Crusty the Clown?

The foster parent is probably the best advocate, and psychiatrists listen to them regarding side effects and any other difficulties, as they are the ones living with the child 24/7.

No easy answers.  And you may have your mind changed if you think it’s as easy as saying no child or just a very tiny few should ever be medicated after spending time with a few dozen difficult cases.  However, that’s not to say you’re not right!

If you are confused by all of this, good.

This means you probably have an open mind.  The subject is riddled by many folks with preconceptions.

Unfortunately, what teachers and social workers sometimes do is list textbook symptoms which correspond to the diagnosis they want the child medicated for.

This is very important because the overbooked psychiatrists who foster children see for 15 minutes or so often rely on these lists as well as communication with the foster parent.

Right or wrong, this is effective and something elementary school teachers in particular are guilty of, especially with regards to ADHD.

Foster parents may be coached (perhaps unintentionally by teachers or social workers) regarding the language to use when describing very real behavioral problems they see.

Recently, the county has insisted the foster child see a psychiatrist monthly (it doesn’t always happen) and this may have resulted in a decrease in the percentage of foster children being medicated.

Meds do calm difficult foster children and prevent the foster child, for example, from being shipped to a more restrictive environment such as a group home.  Sometimes medication seems to be the only thing keeping the child in school. Other times, it does seem like we are over medicating our children.

So call me biased, but sometimes I think it’s the right thing to do.  Call me biased, but sometimes I don’t.  No easy answers.

Got that?

Joshuaallenonline.com

Joshuaallenonline@gmail.com

Children Services Fail – DCFS Discovers New Way to Reduce Fatalities: Less Reporting

The Business of Child Abuse

By Joshua Allen

Article first published as Children Services FAIL: DCFS Discovers New Way to Reduce Fatalities; Less Reporting on Technorati.

Another day in the business of child abuse. The LA Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) has discovered a new way to reduce the amount of child fatalities associated with it during the past year. They have narrowed the criteria of what constitutes abuse and neglect.

Like Clinton splitting hairs about what “it,” means. The department is now redefining what it means to die by abuse and neglect.

It’s like magic! Report fewer fatalities from abuse and neglect, and fewer deaths blot the good name of the department.

While we are not in Goebbels territory (yet), it’s still pretty creepy.

This new interpretation constitutes a wonderful service for children (not) and it works for the department, too. Sadly it doesn’t work for the rest of us, or the dead children.

Garett Therolf of the LA Times, who is just about the only journalist in Los Angeles writing critically about DCFS these days, quotes LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky who said;

“I think the department has an interest in minimizing the number of cases that they put on the …list because, frankly, it makes them look better.” Oh yes indeed!

While the other County Supervisors are intent on finding out who leaked information regarding fatalities associated with the department to the LA Times, Yaroslavsky again put his neck on the line when he said what everybody else is thinking.

As an example of the new policy, eleven-year old Jorge Tarin who hung himself with a jump rope after two separate interviews with social workers, was not included in the most recent tally of child deaths associated with the department. The rationale appears to be because he did not die from abuse or neglect.

Yet just that day he had reported to school officials that he was “…tired of people hitting me all the time.”

This is a department of 6,500 individuals, just a third less personnel than the Los Angeles police department, which over the years has been subject to federal scrutiny, a consent decree and the Christopher commission.

The secretive nature of DCFS, in contrast to the police, is instructive of what happens when public audit and scrutiny is limited to a few self-serving politicians and officials who use the department and information they choose to disclose for political ends.

While talk of reforming the department remains ongoing, it reminds one of the endless conversations in the press and by the same County Supervisors (except for Ridley Thomas who was recently elected) of the decades long conversation about what to do about MLK Hospital.

And that solution was to close the place.

Joshuaallenonline.com

Joshuaallenonline@gmail.com

The Foster Child and the Garbage Bag:

The business of Child Abuse

By Joshua Allen

With all this bothersome talk about DCFS “leaks,” and “freedom of the press,” I got to wondering what possessed Trish Plohen and DCFS to try and sneak the investigation under the radar, away from irritating eyes like the LA Times and the general public, the people who pay their salaries.

It’s arrogance of course, that and ignorance.

We encounter that a lot in foster care, and not just from abusive parents, but also from bureaucrats, administrators and apparatchiks who have never run a business, done physical labor, worried about their guaranteed pensions or worked a single day outside the confines of the DCFS public dollar.

This breeds a certain type of individual, a certain type of contempt for public audit and media sophistication.

So does spending a career working with and around abused and neglected children and their abusive and neglectful birth parents.  The latter is especially fun.  It takes a toll.

I say the latter not because it justifies trying to sneak the investigation under the public radar, but rather to add context to the utter stupidity that underlies the mentality that the pesky public needs to be kept at bay from, for example, heroes like foster parents who do the real work in caring for children who have been beaten, sexually abused and neglected.

It is hard-working with children that were abused.  That’s why social workers get the big bucks…not…

But a lot of people have tough jobs that deal with human misery, ER workers, police, hospice nurses, County Supervisors…well not the latter of course, they just cause of lot of it.

Hearing Ridley Thomas speak about the potential damage to social workers morale is like eating watery gruel.

Unlike politicians and our police department, DCFS seems clueless when it comes to the media, public perception and public audit.  And unlike politicians, they aren’t voted in or out.  Like Philadelphia, they are just there.  So why worry about what anyone else thinks?

Zev Yaroslovsky was the only voice that appeared to understand where the focus of DCFS should be rather than trying to find out who is leaking non-confidential information to the press.   Ridley Thomas may have called that a “cheap shot,” By Yaroslovsky, but he has never satisfactorily answered his own possible role in helping a foster agency with a terrible record get off of administrative hold which may have played a partial role in the killing of foster angle Viola Vanclief.

We’re still waiting for that answer.   Ridley Thomas indignation as heard on a recent radio show may be justified as he tripped on the battle for public perception, unfair or not – Zev Yaroslavsky = Truth, Justice, Savior of Children – Ridley Thomas = Lies and Cover Ups.    I’d be indignant too.

However, amid this “noise and waste” there is something – er -someone who remains a forgotten part of the conversation.

Our foster children.  The ones who remain alive that is.

You remember the children right?  They are the ones who have parents who beat them or each other.  Have parents who touch them sexually, use drugs, neglect them and leave them alone in the home as toddlers.  The ones who have parents or other adults in their lives who do unspeakable to them, things which keep social workers wondering why they have chosen this profession.

The children, remember?

They get removed from abusive parents in the middle of the night, and if they are lucky some of their clothes and perhaps a toy are stuffed inside a garbage bag as they are packed off to-Lord help us- a loving foster home while feeling fear and anger at being torn from their parents no matter what the parents had done to them.

The garbage bag;

The children’s suitcase and frankly symbol to their new life of strangers and courts, investigators and new schools, overworked and impossible to reach lawyers, and well-meaning and sometimes foolish social workers who can refer them to therapists and talk to them at length with their own version of counseling, but in the end often wonder what they can do to really help, to honestly offer some type of solution that too often is not forthcoming.

The garbage bag;

One of the first tools an abused child encounters on their excursion through

The Business of Child Abuse.

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Joshuaallenonline@gmail.com

The Death of Jorge Tarin: DCFS FAIL?

The Business of Child Abuse.

By Joshua Allen

Sometimes the wrong call is just that, an accident, it could happen to anyone.  And sometimes a wrong call is because of fatigue, a lack of information, bad policy or all three.  Without knowing the facts, we can’t make a true assessment of what happened when Jorge Tarin hung himself several weeks ago.  As excerpted in the Times report:

“Just hours earlier, Los Angeles County mental health and child abuse investigators had visited the drab apartment building to examine 11-year-old Jorge Tarin. He had told a school counselor that day that he wanted to kill himself. After speaking to Jorge privately, the county workers left.”

And:

“Although county workers had visited Jorge in disheveled homes since his infancy — noting drugs, violence and neglect in the households — the complete history was not available to the officials who interviewed him that day. Without remote access to the department’s computer system, the social worker at the scene was unable to fill in some blanks that may have changed the decision to leave Jorge at the home.”

You can read the full article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-child-death-20100725,0,939247.story

The facts are tragic and pathetic, and represent a breakdown in the very system designed to protect our children.  Clearly there is fault, there is guilt.  It is the “who,” which represents the complication.  This is not an easy call beyond whatever culpability exists with the parents.

Assigning blame to the DCFS investigator who left the troubled adolescent in the home is too easy and possibly, not fair.  However clearly he/she made the wrong call.

What we know now is the investigator did not have sufficient information, was unable to, or could not use the expensive tablet computers with a modem to connect to the DCFS network.  And therefore they did not have information regarding the stepfather’s previous record, or the history of allegations towards the home, birth parents and step-father.

Further, the second investigator had little information regarding what was said during the interview with Jorge at the school.

You see; the majority of Tablets and wireless modems that may have been used to access information regarding the step-father continue to sit unused, either because of training difficulties, workers refusal to use this new technology (that is if you could call 3-year-old computers “new technology”) or a lack of funds allocated to fully implement the necessary infrastructure.  I take the easy route and tend to go with all three.

The result was a dead child.  Beyond the referenced article, we now know that Jorge was treated differently than other children in the home, being made to sleep on a sofa for example instead of having his own bed.  Nothing new here I suppose, Cinderella also was treated differently from her half siblings. Only it’s not a fairytale.

No happy endings here.  Just calls for audits and heads to roll by the usual suspects.  Jorge had originally been in foster care for 15 months and then returned home about 2 year back during a time when DCFS was keeping children out of foster care at a record rate.

This policy saved money and answered critics claims that Los Angeles was putting too many children into foster care.  I suspect the nonsense program of Family Preservation had a role at one point or anther too.  And as far as “saving money,” goes, remember, the budget is almost the same amount of billions of dollars only with about a third of as many children placed into foster care.

Does anyone believe we are getting more services for our dollars?  That money is going somewhere.  Knock knock, administrators, apparatchiks, SEIU, anybody home?

Now DCFS in a temporary change in policy refuses to discuss child fatalities connected to the department with reporters in a misguided attempt to circle the wagons.  All on advice of lawyers of course.

The party line changed the next day when a different lawyer attempted to walk this back, but yes, we get the message.   It’s the era of transparency right?  And little information continues to be forthcoming.

To our utter shame as a society, many children and teens interviewed by social workers say they want to die at one time or another.  Red-flag-city every time too.  Nobody plays around with this.    Yet in the end it is always a judgment call.  It has to be.  There is no cookie cutter solution.

The school did the correct thing. (As far as this single issue of notifying DCFS)  They called the hotline and reported it.  A mental health social worker came out, interviewed Jorge but let him go home on the bus.

There were enough concerns however that the department sent another investigator out to interview the young man at home.  But as seen above, this last investigator didn’t have all the information to make a proper assessment.

If we had a nickel for every therapist who wishes they had done it differently, who had this happen to them…it is about as common as getting through your entire career as a lawyer or doctor without being on the wrong end of a malpractice suit.  It happens.

The second DCFS investigator went in there half blind, perhaps tired and at the end of their shift, and now a child is dead.

The parents?…We will have to let a higher power deal with whatever role they had concerning their moral culpability.  Social workers or for that matter therapists don’t use the word “moral,” too often during their day to day business.

But we know it when we see it.

Joshuaallenonline.com

Joshuaallenonline@gmail.com

Who Watches the Watchmen?  The Board of Supervisors has decided to audit DCFS!

The Business of Child Abuse

By Joshua Allen

Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?  Who watches the Watchmen?  The Latin phrase from the Roman poet Juvenal not Alan Moore although the ‘Watchmen,’ was a cool comic when it first came out.

So here is my advice should the Board of Supervisors go this route.

Audit the auditors.

You know, the guys who go around and superficially talk to foster parents and kids to make sure everything be okay.

The young folks who come to the agencies and check out the cooked books allowing millions to be misspent year after year after year…

The people who have allowed DCFS to get by on the same billions of dollars budget they have had for years while serving perhaps a third of the amount of kids in foster care.  Where is all that extra money going?  (Do we really have to ask)?

The same folks who have allowed Family Preservation to become a big joke, allowing “Paraprofessionals,” to collect moonlighting income year after year knowing full well the program does little of what it is supposed to do.

The same folks who have allowed double and triple dipping executives without college degrees to run agencies into the ground or to continue drinking nectar from the golden goose year after year when everyone who gets near these places knows that something funny is happening.

The same folks who have allowed elders in their dotage to continue on full salary while they putter around the office a day or two a week on full tax payer salary because they were one of the original investors of the seed money and now know where the bodies are buried.

The same folks who bought antiquated equipment that is little used because training is too complicated for retired-in-place-investigators who can barely use their cell phones.  Or because by the time the IT department actually gets around to using the stuff the price for the infrastructure has increased to the point where there isn’t money left to implement the majority of the devices.  (Or do I have it wrong?  I think not).

Yes certainly, audit the department.  What’s a few BILLION DOLLARS a year among friends?  Amazing they never thought of this before!  Why should DCFS be any different from our schools or MLK hospital?

Thank heavens for the love and decency that come from our foster parents.  There are a lot of good ones out there and they are all that stands between the enshrinement of mediocrity that currently typifies our foster care system.

A loving foster parent is our best defense, and the rest is commentary.

Joshuaallenonline.com

Joshuaallenonline@gmail.com

LA Foster Care:  The City of Bell Model

The Business of Child Abuse

By Joshua Allen

The most recent dust-up in Bell brings to mind…well just about everything I have been writing about the past several months.  For those of you who don’t know, Bell is a small city with a bit less than 40 thousand in population.

Close to 20% of the city is below the poverty level.  I’ll let you read the dirty details here, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/bell-officials-to-ask-state-controller-john-chiang-to-independently-audit-city-finances.html but the parallels to what has been going on with agency foster care is striking.

First of all you have a small cadre of elites running things, making salaries many times more than similar jobs with same population cities across California and the nation.

One guy was earning close to a million dollars and the police chief of this small city was earning almost double the salary of the chief for Los Angeles.

These guys also have iron clad contracts so even after Bell is rid of them they will continue to earn several hundred grand per year in perpetuity in pension payments from California for the rest of their lives. Millions and millions of dollars!

“You get what you pay for.” Stated the arrogant city administrator; Well he’s close; actually you get who you vote for, in this case the corrupt city council members.

It was the city council who was supposed to be earning about 10 grand a year but instead was making that per month.

They got around the law by paying themselves the majority of their ill-gotten income through a scheme that put them in charge of sham committees that met for as little as a couple of minutes per month.

These council members were the wink and a nod stooges who voted the salaries and other benefits to the police chief and city administrators who between the 3 of them were taking in close to 2 million per year.

The city council then fired their police force who they believe leaked the salary information to the Times when the council threatened to contract out law enforcement services to the County Sheriffs.

But back to foster care.  Let’s examine the parallels.

1. A hand-picked board of directors (like the Bell City Council) who get favors and under the table deals votes on huge and extraordinary salaries to CEO’s, assistants and other cronies who work for a Foster Care agency.
2. The city council …er  (Agency)Board of Directors meets monthly to ratify and vote on pretty much whatever the CEO wants in exchange for undocumented under-the-table swag that snooker eagle-eyed county auditors that need a tree to hit them in the head before they spot the forest.
3. This goes on for years or decades and both CEO’s, cronies and Board Members are considered pillars of the community, raise charitable donations from local businesses and individuals, and do radio and print interviews with journalists who couldn’t in a million years imagine anything shady going on.
4. The money is siphoned, sucked, stolen from our most vulnerable, in this case Abused and Neglected children.
5. The CEO’s run their agencies like a personal fiefdom, firing ‘at will’ employees whenever they get too close, too greedy or too lazy, and put the whole scheme at risk.

Indeed it is increasingly difficult for some agencies to prove (beyond scribbled time cards) that some of the executives are actually doing and working the hours they are supposed to.

Some of these “full time paid – semi-retired executives,” know where all the skeletons are.  They can’t get them out so there remains an uneasy truce with all sides waiting for the other shoe to drop year after year.  (In this case the shoe is a competent forensic audit).

And it rarely drops.  And when it does the reprobates will only be mildly penalized for the year or two they are audited.  The decades of misbegotten payments remain theirs to keep.

This is tax money.  These are not for profit businesses.  If it was a normal business, – all the power to ya… Free enterprise, we love it.

Maybe it’s just me, but taking money from abused children is like “putting stumbling blocks before the blind.”  It bothers me.  It bothers me a lot.

This is the pattern in Los Angeles County.  This is the history.

So, if I were one of the top dogs at Hannah’s Children’s homes, America Care, Homes of Hope, Wings of Refuge,  Children’s Way, Futuro Infantil Hispano, Nuevo Amencer,  and frankly, perhaps a dozen or so others…well I’d be a bit concerned.

We know who you are.

Joshuaallenonline.com

Joshuaallenonline@gmail.com

Authors Note:

Kiana Barker the alleged killer of Viola Vanclief is back in jail.  So is her boyfriend James Julian.  You can read the story here:  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-child-death-20100720,0,611562.story

If I were a lawyer or investigator I’d like to know a few things:

Did disgraced United Care administrator Tamara Komashko tell the foster care social worker to only visit Viola and family at the United Care office since the social worker didn’t think Barker’s home was a safe and proper location?

Did the foster care social worker warn Ms. Komashko in an email that the foster home had significant and dangerous problems?  If there is an email we should see it.

Did Ms. Komashko and disgraced CEO of United Care Craig Woods know that Kiana Barker was living with a felon?

Exactly how complicit or negligent is the staff from United Care and DCFS in Viola’s death?  Would this angle still be alive had they done their jobs?  And is that a fair assessment?