The panel recommends allowing the neighboring juvenile hall to use part of the underutilized, overstaffed Orangewood facility for abused and neglected children in Orange.
By Tami Abdollah
10:58 PM PST, January 27, 2009
While an Orange County facility that cares for abused and neglected children provides spacious cottage-like facilities and roughly four staffers per child, conditions at county juvenile hall are far more bleak, with a shortage of beds and waiting lists for basic programs, according to a grand jury report released Tuesday.
"It's almost like you are comparing an area of barracks to Beverly Hills," said grand jury foreman Jim Perez.
The grand jury report recommends that the county's Social Services Agency give up at least half of its property at Orangewood Children's Home in Orange in order to improve conditions at the Probation Department's facilities next door.
It also suggests the county consider reducing staff at the children's home because its numbers have steadily decreased. Orangewood served up to 300 children in the 1990s but now serves roughly 75 children because of declining need.
County officials said they would review the grand jury report and respond to the Board of Supervisors within 90 days.
"I will say we've worked very hard to reduce the number of children at the Orangewood facility," said Ingrid Harita, director of the county's Social Services Agency. "The abused and neglected children of Orange County really need and deserve a safe and nurturing environment, and we provide that at Orangewood."
More than 300 employees and 250 volunteers serve the 75 children at Orangewood at a cost of $739 per child each day; that compares with 479 staffers for 559 children in the Probation Department at a cost of $228 per child each day, according to the report.
The report concluded that half of Orangewood could be used by the Probation Department without affecting the quality of care for children at Orangewood.
Grand jurors estimated that the savings to taxpayers could be in the millions. The Orangewood facility costs about $23 million a year to run, according to the report.
"We hope that some common sense will prevail and the Orange County citizens will look at the needs of all children, not just some children," Perez said.
This is the third grand jury report that has addressed the Orangewood facility. The first, in 1999-2000, also found that the Orangewood facility was overstaffed. The second, in 2006-07, again challenged the "overstaffing and underutilization" of the facility. County authorities said high staffing levels were necessary because children at Orangewood are "more emotionally and developmentally damaged" and require an "increased level of care."
Orange County grand jurors contend that many children at juvenile hall, though classified as lawbreakers, fit the same profiles and require the same high level of care as those sent to the Orangewood facility.
Recently 210 positions at the Social Services Agency were eliminated; the Probation Department was also hit with the loss of more than 90 beds at one of its juvenile facilities, and it will also be closing one of its youth and family resource centers at the end of this week.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-me-orangewood28-2009jan28,1,2320279.story
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