LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to reevaluate the treatment of youngsters in the county’s care, aiming to keep foster children out of juvenile halls and camps.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas championed the effort, calling for more intervention and less punishment for children who often have a history of trauma.
“If we all roll up our sleeves, we can commit to shutting down the foster care (to) juvenile justice pipeline in Los Angeles County,” Ridley-Thomas said.
He pointed to grim statistics about foster youth who cross over into the juvenile justice system, citing 2016 research by Cal State Los Angeles showing that three-quarters of “dual-status” kids have a mental health diagnosis and one-tenth have attempted suicide.
Both Ridley-Thomas and Solis noted a lack of collaboration across county departments serving children.
Julio Marcial of the Liberty Hill Foundation told the board about someone he said could serve as a poster child for the problem.
DeAngelo was removed from his family home by child welfare workers when he was 3 years old and then lived in a succession of more than a dozen foster homes before turning 14. He ran away, lived on the streets for months and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. DeAngelo repeatedly ended up in juvenile detention.
“But for most of his young life, the people responsible for helping him in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems hardly spoke to one another, much less coordinated services, because of the long-standing gulf between the two systems,” Marcial said.
DeAngelo is now 24 and behind bars.
Advocates said typical teen behavior that wouldn’t trigger legal consequences for kids at home with their families can land foster children in juvenile court.
Taylor Lytle of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition told the board she was moved into the foster care system at age 11 and was bullied and abused in her new home. She was arrested at 13 and was shuttled in and out of juvenile hall over the next two years for probation violations like being suspended from school.
“Young people in foster care need to feel safe and reach their dreams, not be criminalized,” Lytle said. “Once you enter the justice system, it is so hard to get out.”
Supervisor Hilda Solis, who co-authored the motion, said it was time to turn the cycle around.
“The kids in our halls and in our camps are the same kids in our foster homes,” Solis said. “They’ve experienced abuse and neglect and need trauma-informed care.”
The board directed the Office of Child Protection to lead efforts to develop a plan for “dual-status” or “cross-over” youth, and also those at risk of ending up in the justice system, which would include making sure children have access to high-quality health and mental health care, as well as housing, education and employment services for transition-age youth.
The board’s action comes in the context of major changes in child welfare policy at the federal and state levels. Reform in California seeks to move away from group home settings, relying instead on training new foster families or letting youth live with an extended family member.
New federal legislation offers reimbursement to states for mental health services, substance abuse treatment and in-home parenting skill training related to foster care.
Inequities in the system also need to be addressed, according to the motion, with black youth and girls in the foster system more likely to become delinquent. Nearly half of the county’s dual status cases are black youth and nearly 40 percent are young women, even though young women make up only 20 percent of the probation population.
A report is expected back in six months.
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Concerned Teacher says
Many of the people taking in foster children are unqualified to be natural parents, let alone someone else’s “foster parent”. They do it strictly for the county/state money. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s basically another form of welfare.
Many of these “foster parents” can’t even manage to get out of bed to get their children to school before 11:00 a.m. I have had several “foster parents” not attend important school meetings pertaining to their children because they were asleep at 11:00, 12:00 and 1:00 in the afternoon.
Another big scam is when a grandmother calls DCFS on her own daughter to have the kids taken away, then volunteers to take the grandkids in as their “foster mother” to receive state/county money. She continues to let the daughter and her various boyfriends live with her, and the daughter and boyfriend share in the state/county money as well.
So, if you think about it, is it really any wonder that, with such lovely role models, these kids end up getting locked up later on?
too little too late says
this has been going on for over 20 years and they are JUST NOW looking into it? at this rate, they will ALL be at Pelican Island or dead from gang violence before they come-up with a solution!
too little- too late says
this has been going on for over 20 years and they are JUST NOW looking into it? at this rate, they will ALL be at Pelican Island or dead from gang violence before they come-up with a solution!
Amy says
It’s about time. So many of us got thrown away in the foster care system… they like to call it “falling through the cracks” , but no, we were actually thrown away. The system does so much damage. We need to start investing into the Family unit to prevent children from entering it altogether. This is a step in the right direction but it’s still equivalent to putting a bandaid on a severed limb.
Smart_Dad says
Do you think they really want to “fix” it? Of course not ! That would mean that more people at the County social services offices would be out of a job! They want job security and all of the perks and benefits that come with it.
Don’t expect anything to change unless it happens organically — meaning that the fathers stay in the home and actually be fathers, instead of just “baby daddy”. Boys who grow up in a home with a close father-figure are more likely to stay out of trouble and out of prison later on in life. And, furthermore, they won’t have county social workers meddling in their lives to get a pay check!
Until this changes organically, from within the low-income community, don’t expect anything different. The County workers are going to continue to get in their SUVs, drink their Starbucks lattes, keep their gold-plated health care plans and retire on their lavish benefits….and they’re going to keep demanding more of the same and a larger workforce!
If you want to fight this Leviathan, then start by staying home and being good dads and raising your kids right! Then there won’t be a need for social workers prying into your lives and living lavishly off a broken system.
Irvingstark says
Where else to we put the mentally ill but in prison?? We desperately need mental health services.