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SB 1391 The intent of the bill is to shed light on the problems confronting the child welfare system through public and media access. The legislative summary of the bill cites a study by the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors stating "the [Los Angeles] foster system was in such a disarray that it could not guarantee the safety of the 18,000 children in its care." Local 535 child welfare workers could not agree more that the child welfare system in Los Angeles is a disaster! However, SB1391 will not address this problems. Instead it will further victimize children and families by subjecting them to public scorn and ridicule. Dependency court was intended to be a place where all the parties could work out a solution to family problems that would be in the best interests of the children and family. Instead it has become an extremely adversarial arena where cases are decided by legal strategies and technicalities. Media access will just intensify this problem. One need only imagine a family member accused of child abuse arriving at a detention hearing and finding cameras and reporters waiting to plaster his or her name and face on a TV screen to understand how potentially harmful this kind of access could be. And think of the child who would be forced to testify in front of the media knowing his or her classmates could be watching. Even if the case were dismissed at the detention hearing, irreversible damage would have been done. The issues discussed in dependency court are very private. All parties, and especially the children, must be protected for there to be positive results. It is not necessary to sacrifice a family's privacy to reveal to the public the failings of the child welfare system. Workers have repeatedly testified to legislative bodies and at press conferences that they are unable to provide services to clients or fulfill court mandates. The SB 2030 study documents that unless caseloads are lowered, it is physically impossible for the system to provide the legally-required services to safeguard children and families. Opening the court will do nothing to solve this problem; it will just increase the workload of social workers and drive more workers out of the system. Child welfare reform should concentrate on implementing the findings of the SB 2030 study to provide families with the services to which they are entitled, rather than further victimizing them by compromising their privacy. There needs to be a statewide commitment of all stakeholders to come together and develop a strategic plan on how to better serve children in the dependency court process and ensure better outcomes for children. The only legislator to actively oppose the bill is Assemblywoman Dion Aroner. Local 535 members are encouraged to write their legislators. For more information and sample letters go to the Local 535 web site: www.seiu535.org/socialwork/1391alert.htm . |
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