Review of Department of Children and Family Services

A per­sist­ent back­log of child ab­use in­vest­ig­a­tions in Los Angeles County has led to a “crisis” in the De­part­ment of Chil­dren and Fam­ily Ser­vices, ac­cord­ing to new re­port re­leased this week by the county chief ex­ec­ut­ive’s of­fice.

The as­sess­ment is the most de­tailed ana­lys­is to date by county of­fi­cials of the back­log of cases — which in­volve more than 10,000 chil­dren ac­cord­ing to re­cent fig­ures — in the troubled de­part­ment. The find­ings con­tra­dict de­part­ment Dir­ect­or Trish Ploehn’s state­ment earli­er this year that the longer in­quir­ies have res­ul­ted in high­er qual­ity child ab­use in­vest­ig­a­tions. The re­port, dis­trib­uted to county su­per­visors last month, was not re­leased un­til The Times ap­pealed to County Coun­sel An­drea Or­din.

Ac­cord­ing to the most re­cent county fig­ures, more than four in ten open in­vest­ig­a­tions have not been con­cluded in in the 60 days re­quired by the state. Chief Ex­ec­ut­ive Wil­li­am T Fujioka’s re­port finds that shift­ing work­ers to com­bat the delays “ap­pears to be slowly cre­at­ing a back-end crisis,” de­plet­ing re­sources for oth­er crit­ic­al tasks. Among the du­ties handled by back-end work­ers in the de­part­ment are foster care place­ments and home vis­its.

Read the com­plete story: “Per­sist­ent back­log in L.A. County child ab­use probes has led to a crisis.”