A prominent expert has claimed there has been a lack of progress on child safety in Los Angeles County in the months following a scathing report from a Blue-Ribbon Commission on Child Protection.
It was commissioned in light of Department of Children and Family Services failures in the case of the shocking torture death of 8-year-old Palmdale boy Gabriel Fernandez in May 2013, and the findings were released in April.
Violence Intervention Program executive director Dr. Astrid Heger says there has been a "benign neglect" in taking action on its recommendations.
However, members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the governing body for the area, said that while progress is slower than they would have hoped, it is being made.
The report called for an early warning system to alert authorities to high-risk cases, nurses being paired with social workers during some investigations, mandatory medical hub screenings and cross-referencing all law enforcement child abuse reports to the DCFS.
Heger runs the county HUB system, where children go for medical and other services when they are removed from an unsafe home.
"I think that it probably goes back down to department leadership and that there is sort of a sense of benign neglect," Heger said. "If you are running a farm and haven't tended the back 40 I don't think you know what's growing there."
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Among the issues concerning Heger is a lack of uniform care standards, with the HUB at the LAC USC Medical Center running 24/7, while others in areas including the high desert where Gabriel Fernandez lived still do not.
She pointed out Gabriel never got a medical visit even after teachers and others reported abuse. Staffing these centers, she adds, continues to come down to who will pay for it.
"The power lines where budgets were drawn didn't really take into account what was happening to a single child in this county," Heger said.
And despite one of the aims being a more a coordinated approach to keeping children safe, she believes that is yet to materialize.
However, she did say that improvements have been made in Gabriel’s area.
"Any child age two or age eight is going to be seen immediately and screened for any injuries or any illnesses," Heger said.
Heger is also troubled by restrictions which do not allow treatment of a child without parental consent, despite the fact they are sometimes part of the alleged problem.
However LA County Supervisor Don Knabe said moves are being made to improve things.
"I know that mental health have been to the HUBs, public health and our director of health services have been out, too," he said. "Maybe not in every particular situation but they have been out there."
And Knabe also said they are looking at the parental consent issue, which stems from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which guarantees certain levels of confidentiality for patients.
"We are looking at that because some of that will require legislation because of HIPPA laws and some of the other kinds of things with record keeping," he said.
County Supervisors also conducted interviews this week as they try to find a candidate to head the new Office Of Child Protection, even though it is a position Knabe feels is unnecessary.
His fellow supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas also said that progress is being made by the board, and said he believes the new position is vital.
"My view is that it is taking longer than what I would have hoped … we should be moving now," he said.
