Advocates have complained for years about the center where abused children await housing
Blog note: this article references a grand jury report.
When children who’ve been abused or neglected are taken away from home, the government is supposed to make sure they’re placed in a safe home or place to stay.
But in Santa Clara County that place hasn’t always been safe, and as they have for about a decade, children’s advocates and foster parents complain that violence, drugs and inadequate staff training still plague the center where many children end up.
Some members of the Board of Supervisors this week said enough is enough and proposed an immediate halt to temporarily housing children in the county-run Receiving, Assessment and Intake Center (RAIC).
“They had 10 years to figure it out. They came to us eight years ago and said, we’re having problems, kids are being molested, and kids who have drug abuse issues are [being housed] with kids who don’t,” Supervisor Dave Cortese said in a phone call Monday. “There comes a point in time where you’ve talked and talked and try to take corrective action as an elected official and nothing changes, so you take drastic action.”
At Tuesday’s board meeting, the supervisors asked staff to return with a plan in two weeks that could include the option of putting an immediate moratorium on housing children at the receiving center and temporarily moving them elsewhere.
The receiving center was created after the county closed its full-time children’s shelter in 2009 amid a shift away from group homes and numerous and persistent complaints against it — including a grand jury report — about conditions that re-traumatize children and induce self-destructive behavior.
The receiving center is meant to be a temporary stop — a place for children to stay no more than a day to get food, social services and other necessities on their way to a more permanent home.
Some children, especially those with no prior interaction with the system, are supposed to be at the center for only a few hours. But in reality, a shortage in foster homes and a dearth of options means some stay much longer, in violation of state law, especially older ones with serious behavioral issues who have cycled out of multiple housing placements.
“Things can go very smoothly — kids come in, they get immediate needs like food, shelter and other care, and in theory, move onto a [housing] placement,” said Julian Soria, a social worker at the center for more than a year. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t always the reality — older kids realized they could turn down placements, and we can’t deny them that, so we’d have dependents there for long stretches of time, weeks to months.”
Social workers have also raised concerns about younger children unfamiliar with the system being housed with older children who have been at the receiving center multiple times and might have behavioral or substance abuse problems or exhibit violent behavior. A shortage of security at the center also has made it easy for youth to come and go, leaving through windows and bringing in drugs or weapons, employees say.
Kathleen Harrison, a psychiatric social worker at the center for six years, recalled an instance a few months ago involving a group of young siblings removed from a home of domestic abuse.
“Earlier in the day…a teen was very loud and aggressive and threatening toward the staff…and a couple of these youth expressed to me they didn’t want to leave their room because they were scared,” Harrison said. “They were removed because of domestic violence, and again exposed to similar [situations]” at the center.
In addition, employees at the center have been assaulted by youth. Harrison recalled an instance where a teenager threatened a staff member and later brought in a knife.
Soria said employees don’t receive specialized training in handling children with serious behavioral issues, properly restraining them or interacting with those who have developmental disabilities. He has seen several children with developmental disabilities, such as autism, at the receiving center in the past year.
“I have a background in autism intervention and developmental disabilities…but if I hadn’t had that background, I haven’t really received any guidance or support or training that specifically addressed some of those needs,” Soria said. “If we had certain children who can’t speak, or are acting out, or instances where they could self-harm, are we supposed to be hands off and let an individual hurt themselves?”
The county has been discussing various changes to the receiving center since the children’s shelter was closed. County CEO Jeff Smith said the long-term plan was always to move away from the receiving center model.
“Staff completely agrees with the board that the receiving center is a model that no longer works,” Smith said at Tuesday’s meeting. “What’s really obvious to everyone, the state included, is the only way they are appropriately taken care of is with full wrap-around services, including mental health, and substance abuse.”
Several employees said they’ve only seen changes at the receiving center in the past month, attributing that to the publicity generated by an employees’ strike in October.
Smith rejected the notion that the changes were a response to the strike, adding the county has been working on those issues for years.
He acknowledged that training for social workers has not been adequate, and said the county recently added probation officers and behavioral health staff to the receiving center. Children also are now housed at different facilities according to age and behavioral issues, he said.
Cortese said all the problems cited by employees have persisted for years and blamed the county administration for that.
“It’s not a problem with [being] overwhelmed or overcapacity, it’s just a lack of will to do so,” Cortese said. “If they’ve proven anything, it’s that the more elaborate a RAIC facility they focus themselves on, the more of a slippery slope they create toward turning it into a shelter.”
Supervisor Cindy Chavez said imposing a hard deadline would move the process along.
“The intent here is to get people focused, get the county focused. We can’t have another nine-, 10-year planning process,” she said.
Still, many advocates advised against an immediate moratorium, telling supervisors it would only create more problems.
“In reality, there is no magical solution and there will always be a need for the RAIC,” said Steven Baron, a member of the county’s Child Abuse Prevention Council. “Because there will be days and nights where you will not have places to put these kids, and days when people who are taking care of these kids say they can’t do it anymore.”
November 6, 2019
The Mercury News
By Thy Vo
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