Turnover, high caseloads hinder child protective services, Riverside County grand jury says

High turnover among Riverside County social workers, and burdensome caseloads for those who stay, remain a problem for the county’s child protective services despite recent improvements, a new civil grand jury report states.

County spokesperson Yaoska Machado on Wednesday, June 29, confirmed the county received the report Tuesday, June 28.

County Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen said in an emailed statement: “We … look forward to reading it and reviewing the recommendations.”

He added that county officials will have a formal response within 90 days.

The report on the Children’s Services Division is the latest outside probe of an agency that finds itself scrutinized for its care of at-risk children, including some who died and children in the Turpin family who were found chained and abused in a Perris home in 2018.

The 22-page report comes about a week before the county is expected to release a report from attorney Stephen Larson’s firm, which was hired to look into allegations the county neglected the 13 Turpin siblings after they were placed in foster care and with the Public Guardian, which looks after vulnerable adults.

High caseloads and turnover among social workers tasked with protecting children is not a new issue in Riverside County. At a March Riverside County Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Kevin Jeffries said worker caseloads are at “bone-crushing levels.”

Children’s services, which falls under the county Department of Public Social Services, has more than 1,100 employees, including roughly 600 social workers, according to the grand jury. It’s responsible for child welfare in a county of 2.4 million people.

The county’s child abuse hotline received more than 63,000 calls in 2021, which led to just under 3,900 substantiated cases of child abuse or neglect, the jury reported.

In recent years, the agency has made headlines involving horrific outcomes for at-risk children.

In 2018, the county paid more than $11 million to settle two lawsuits, one involving a toddler found hugging her infant sibling’s mummified corpse — social workers failed to protect her from her mentally ill mother, lawyers said — and the other involving a girl on children’s services radar who, a lawsuit alleged, was repeatedly raped by her mother’s boyfriend and gave birth to his child.

Social workers did not remove 8-year-old Noah McIntosh of Corona from his home despite reports of him showing up to school without pants, having his hands zip-tied behind him and being dunked in cold water, public records show. He disappeared in March 2019 and his father was charged with Noah’s murder.

Other cases the jury cited include:

  • Diane Ramirez, a 17-year-old with disabilities who died in a foster home in 2019. Her parents, in a legal claim, alleged the county knew or should have known that placing their daughter in that home “was a death sentence waiting to happen.”
  • Allison Kittrell, a 14-month-old girl who died of a fentanyl overdose in 2020. Her grandmother sued the county, claiming it failed to remove Allison from her drug-addicted mother despite warnings from hospital staff.

A previous grand jury recommended improvements to children’s services in 2013. Five years later, the county, which went through two social services directors in three years, hired an outside firm to examine the agency and recommend changes; the firm said the agency was making progress.

The latest grand jury report praises county leadership for “effectively promoting a culture of accountability and a strong commitment to (children’s services) stated values.” Children’s services and the county counsel’s office “are working together to provide the support and the tools they need for making timely decisions that will protect the children,” the report states.

But the jury found that heavy social worker caseloads, identified as a problem by the 2013 grand jury, persist. While studies show those caseloads should not exceed 24 cases per worker, the average caseload for a caseworker in “Investigative Services” was 29 in February 2022, according to the jury’s report.

To ease the burden, a group of managers meets weekly to reshuffle cases, “strike teams” of 14 to 16 employees tackle cases that are at least 45 days old and a new policy aims to act on referrals involving children at high risk of harm, the jury reported.

“The managers we spoke with expressed confidence that these combined efforts are helping, but there is no doubt that the workloads would continue to be heavy,” the jury found.

There’s also a 32% turnover rate among child caseworkers, a trend that makes it harder to ease caseloads, the grand jury added.

In its recommendations, the jury said the county should look at expanding the number of places to send children who are removed from their homes because they’re in imminent danger.

“This would greatly assist (social workers) in timely removals and provide a child a safe environment at a critical time,” the jury’s report read.

Human resources should develop a plan to address turnover that focuses on pay, benefits and other retention strategies, and the Board of Supervisors should add social worker positions and set up a committee to address how to ease caseloads, the jury added.


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