By John Simerman
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 05/22/2009 03:00:54 PM PDT
Updated: 05/22/2009 06:52:11 PM PDT
The Contra Costa County civil grand jury set out in September to examine the county's child welfare agency, but county officials stalled for months and denied access to complete case files, making it impossible for the citizen watchdog body to judge how the agency does its job, according to a report.
County officials disputed the report, saying they gave the grand jury access to all the information allowed by a juvenile court judge under confidentiality laws.
The four-page report takes the county's Children and Family Services Bureau to task for what it calls a "policy to delay and deny" its request to examine a random selection of case files.
The report, issued Thursday, echoed others by grand juries across the state that have complained of poor access to child welfare files. Some have called for legislation to add grand juries to a list of more than 20 interests — including lawyers, parents and guardians, and prosecutors — with an explicit right to inspect those files. Recent state laws have increased access to child welfare files by the public and county supervisors, but only in cases of child fatalities.
Forewoman Leslie Lea said the grand jury sought to examine the agency in the wake of several deaths of children in child welfare systems in Contra Costa and elsewhere. In some cases, investigations have found egregious gaps in the system and failures to comply with state laws or the agencies' own policies, she said.
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"We thought, somebody needs to keep an eye on these things. And we just ran into resistance all the way through," Lea said. "We certainly are not saying anything is wrong. We just wanted to examine the process."
State law also allows a Juvenile Court judge to grant access to anyone who files a petition to inspect a child welfare file. After a January hearing, Judge Lois Haight allowed grand jury members to view 25 random files, minus full names, addresses, medical records and other information. Grand jury members looked at nine files and gave up the task, said Cynthia Schwerin, deputy county counsel.
"For the most part everything they wanted was there. Them knowing the identities of individuals, as far as we knew, wasn't going to help them with what they were looking for," she said.
The report describes the agency as "censoring" the files and said it was impossible to know what was missing. Joe Valentine, who oversees Children and Family Services as director of the county's Employment and Human Services agency, denied that.
"We made every effort to cooperate with them," he said.
The county Board of Supervisors has 90 days to respond to the report.
Reach John Simerman at 925-943-8072 or jsimerman@bayareanewsgroup.com.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12431032
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