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the history of such past efforts gives us reason to be skeptical at this time,â the report states. Sheriff William Honsal pushes back on some of these findings, particularly in regard to training. Honsal says his office has negotiated a new memorandum of understanding with CWS that should close the âcommunication loop.â The Friday afternoon dumping of multiple cases will no longer happen, he says, adding that the sheriff âs office has also assigned a new detective to child abuse cases, and its ranks will swell by nine new recruits in the coming months. Honsal says the challenges of recruiting and housing deputies in rural communities has contributed to staffing concerns in time-sensitive cases, such as those involving child abuse. But he denies that a lack of training is a factor. âWe teach our people, when they respond to a child abuse case, we donât want to further traumatize the child,â he says, explaining that the methodology of the Child Abuse Services Team involves an officer watching a social worker interview the child and taking a single report, rather than doing multiple interviews and potentially re-traumatizing a child. âWhat needs to be relayed is that we do take this very, very seriously at
the sheriff âs office.â The CAST interview system does highlight a potential bottleneck in processing reports, as the grand jury report refers to a general dearth of social workers in the field. âCWS admitted they are badly in need of additional staff to handle their work,â the report reads. âBest estimates of unfilled social worker vacancies ranged from 10 to 22.â Exacerbating an overall deficit of workers, according to the report, is a recent shift in policy in which skilled social workers have been pulled from the field in order to staff the phones for hotline intakes. This is one of the changes in policies and procedures that appears to have taken place mid-investigation. The grand jury reports that CWS âabruptly made notable changes to their policies and procedures at intakeâ after twice denying the grand jury access to intake process data. In a report titled âGetting the Door Open,â the grand jury details its attempts to track response times by CWS, saying it had been denied name-redacted copies of intake forms and has reported this denial to the presiding judge. Despite the denial, the jury was able to review 50 reports sent by mandated reporters. It found âshockingly slow response times,â with only six receiving
attention within 24 hours (the mandated amount of time). The average time for CWS to respond to a mandated reporter, according to the grand juryâs data, was 12 days. It also found that, over a one-year period, CWS âevaluated outâ more than half of reported abuse and neglect incidents, meaning they were disregarded, many without personal contact with reporters or alleged victims. The report states that the social workers interviewed in the course of the investigation âappeared to be seriously dedicated to the work they were doingâ but were hamstrung with internal frustrations, such as not receiving proper training, a high turnover rate, management issues and overwhelming caseloads, according to interviews conducted with CWS personnel. If there are problems with CWS, Native American children appear to be suffering most in the system, representing approximately 38 percent of those in foster care despite comprising only 7 percent of all children in Humboldt County. The California Attorney Generalâs Office has also focused on examining this dynamic, attempting to make sure the county is adhering to the federal Indian Child Welfare Act. The grand jury found a âdisproportionate number of
American Indian children removed from their homes.â The remote location of many tribal members may contribute to delayed response times by a small CWS staff already spread thin. The grand jury studied outcomes for one full year of reports, finding that a full 62 percent of calls were deemed not to meet requirements for an investigation, 32 percent were referred out to other agencies, such as family or marriage counseling (without follow up to see if these referrals were heeded), and only 6 percent of all reports received in the year resulted in opening a case for investigation. CWS, the report adds, appears to be âgoing through many rapid changes,â one of which may include a task force to improve transparency and communication with law enforcement and school districts. The Department of Health and Human Services, Humboldt County Sheriff âs Office and Humboldt County Office of Education are expected to release official responses to the report later this month. â Linda Stansberry is a staff writer at the Journal. Reach her at 442-1400, extension 317, or linda@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @LCStansberry.
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8 NORTH COAST JOURNAL ⢠Thursday, June 15, 2017 ⢠northcoastjournal.com