Did Imperial County investigate reports of child abuse? Management and staffers disagree
Two former employees with the Imperial County Department of Social Services say leadership there rushed to reduce a backlog of child abuse reports before a state oversight agency was scheduled to review them, suggesting there may have been even more mishandled cases than previously reported.
The California Department of Social Services investigated the Imperial County department in April after it was found the county had a backlog of reports of child abuse, The Desert Sun reported earlier this month.
The county department's director, Paula Llanas, told the county board of supervisors on Nov. 21 she had been working since her appointment in August 2022 to reduce a backlog of open referrals to the county's child abuse reporting hotline. That has since been done, she said.
"Child safety is paramount to our department. It has always been," Llanas said, adding later: "In May, we had completed all of the backlog that we had identified back in September of last year."
She said the problems were only ones of record keeping and that, despite the lack of paperwork to show it, reports of suspected abuse had been properly vetted and investigated all along.
The California Department of Social Services, meanwhile, told The Desert Sun that it continues to work with Imperial County to address the report's findings, but would not provide any details about the scope of that work.
"The department continues to work closely with Imperial County to ensure that issues are rectified," said department spokesperson Theresa Mier. "This work is ongoing and the department does not have further comment at this time."
The supervisors scheduled a review of the county's child welfare emergency response capabilities in December after The Desert Sun publicly revealed the state investigation. None of the supervisors responded to requests for comment for this story.
Neither the county department nor the board of supervisors has made the report, completed in July, available to the public. The Desert Sun has attached a digital version of the report to this story.
Read Report: California Department of Social Services investigation of Imperial County Department of Social Services
Workers say cases closed with little review
During a previously scheduled board meeting on Nov. 21, several former department employees, including its prior director, expressed their concerns about the report's findings. Some said social workers have not had an opportunity to candidly speak about the volume and nature of the backlog for fear of retaliation.
Cassandra Gregory was a program manager with the department and a facility administrator at the Betty Jo McNeece Receiving Home, a temporary shelter run by the county in El Centro. She spoke during the meeting's public comment period to raise awareness of the audit the state completed months ago and the county's alleged rushed effort to minimize it's findings, which she said she was told of by department staff who were involved.
"Staff was pressured to assist in closing backlogs regardless of any direct knowledge of the case and or any direct contact with anyone named in the case," Gregory told the board. "Although there was resistance by some workers, many felt pressured to do what they were being told to do."
Gregory said a worker at the receiving home told her they were directed to get boxes of case files, "bring them here, shred them."
"Don’t be fooled if you hear, no big deal, these were just eval outs, or exaggerations or lies," Gregory said, with reference to a type of report that does not require rigorous follow up. "Read the (state) report, board, it was sent to you."
Gregory emphasized that the backlog was a violation of state laws, as reports of abuse have required timelines for follow up and investigation. She asked the board to conduct a comprehensive audit of the social services department by people who do not have a vested interest in its current leadership.
"There's no excuses for not following state and federal rules and regulations," Gregory said, adding that department staff need to be interviewed in a way that ensures they won't be retaliated against. "This is the tip of the iceberg. There are people willing to talk."
Backlog started years ago
The state reviewed 53 open referrals during its investigation. Of those, 52 had been open for more than one year, 31 were referrals that required immediate action and 22 required 10-day action. They found that some 550 reports of child abuse had remained open for more than 60 days, a violation of state law. Of those, 13 had been open for at least 3,000 days — over eight years — 68 for more than 2,000 days and 39 for more than 1,000 days.
Llanas, the director, confirmed the state's finding that the department had kept some 1,500 handwritten case reports rather than using a digital system the state requires for monitoring case progress. She said she had reported the antiquated process to the state, and has since transitioned the department to the digital system.
Data shows the backlog had ballooned in plain sight for years. Between July 2021 and December 2022, Imperial County had nearly twice the typical rate of open child welfare reports requiring investigation. Nearly 16% of investigations remained open in Imperial County, while other counties averaged about 9% of investigations open at any given time. Between 2019 and 2021, allegations of child abuse that had yet to be investigated in Imperial County jumped from about 1% in 2017 to nearly 10% in 2018. An average of 16% of cases remained unresolved starting in 2019 and 2020, surging to 23.5% soon before the state opened the investigation.
But allegations that the department rushed to reduce the number of open cases could mean that evidence of more cases was not reviewed by the state or included in its report.
Patricia Carillo, another former department employee, told the board that she was tasked with reducing the backlog before the state investigators arrived to review the pre-identified files.
"We were like chickens with our heads cut off running to get this stuff taken care of," Carillo told the board.
Reporting concerns
Claudia Camarena, a retired program manager with the department, told the board the report needs to be taken seriously and reviewed carefully. She said her concerns about child abuse reports falling through cracks had been building for years.
She made a report to the CPS hotline regarding two children she suspected were being abused this August, Camarena said by phone. She said she specifically told the department that the neighbors had information that investigators needed to know. She said she believes one child was interviewed at school, but doesn't know if the other one was.
"I was told they did not interview the neighbors," Camarena said. "I'm not sure they even went to the home. About three weeks later, the child ended up in the emergency room with injuries."
After that, she said, she contacted the department.
"I told them I was appalled that I had not been contacted regarding the safety of those children, because they were too concerned about nullifying the results of the audit," said Camarena.
Director says problems solved
Llanas provided a presentation to county supervisors at the Nov. 21 meeting addressing the state findings and saying that there was no longer a case backlog. She emphasized that she had identified the backlog when she was appointed last year and was already in the process of addressing it when the state contacted her about it in early 2023.
She said the state had identified that the department needed to revise its record-keeping practices, namely that records needed to be entered into a digital system for transparency. But despite the lapse in record keeping, she said, the cases were adequately reviewed.
"This does not mean that reports were not investigated," said Llanas, who worked for the department in various roles since 2004 before being appointed to run it. "Reports were investigated and specifically the bulk of these were related to the evaluated out reports, these are the reports that don’t meet the criteria for investigation."
During the meeting, Supervisors Ryan Kelley and John Hawk expressed frustration that they had only learned about the investigation and its findings through the newspaper's story and not directly from the department's leadership.
"It is hard to see this in print, rather than in discussion to our board," Kelley told Llanas.
Hawk refrained from commenting in depth about either the state's report or Llanas' presentation. And Kelley echoed that the board needed more time to review the state's findings and the newspaper's reporting on it. Both statements called into question how much the board knew about the report before the story was published and discussed at the Nov. 21 meeting.
But Kelley didn't mince words about the urgency of unresolved abuse reports, even if they stemmed from shoddy record keeping.
"If you didn’t document it, it didn’t happen," Kelley said. "If we had a breakdown of being able to actually put the information in the system: When did that happen? Who was responsible? We have these managers and supervisors, this hierarchy that is supposed to be helping us ensure that those things are compliant. I need to know more in that respect, because the numbers that are in the article are very significant."
Christopher Damien covers public safety and the criminal justice system. He can be reached at christopher.damien@desertsun.com or follow him at @chris_a_damien.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Imperial County leader denies that reports of child abuse were ignored
