"The Child Death Review Team findings represent the latest blow to an agency that has faced intense scrutiny since the 2023 fentanyl poisoning death of baby Phoenix Castro. Despite dire warnings from social workers, the department sent the newborn home with her drug-addicted father, a decision that ultimately revealed agency policies more focused on keeping families together than protecting children. Her mother later died of an overdose, and her father has been charged with murder."
"Extensive reporting by The Mercury News, along with investigations by the state Department of Social Services, previously found that beginning in 2021, the agency's new family preservation policies led to a dramatic reduction in the number of children being removed from their homes by the courts, and instead a new emphasis on keeping them with their parents who were supposed to take classes to improve their parenting skills."
Three Santa Clara County children died in 2022 with parental neglect contributing despite repeated referrals urging child-welfare intervention. Social workers closed multiple referrals as unfounded or inconclusive, referred parents to voluntary services they did not complete, or took no further action until after a child died. In one case, parents faced felony child endangerment charges; in another, parents lost custody of surviving children. The Child Death Review Team performed a deeper review of the cases and uncovered more detailed circumstances. The findings add to scrutiny of agency policies that prioritized family preservation, which reduced court removals and relied on voluntary parental classes.
Read at The Mercury News
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