Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday proposed a radical shift in the way the county monitors children who have been reported neglected or abused, saying "opportunities were missed to intervene earlier" in the recent case of a 5-year-old boy who allegedly endured ritualistic torture at the hands of his mother and two other women.
Supervisors ordered county officials to create a system under which various agencies -- including children's service, probation, Sheriff's Department, court system, health and welfare -- would formally share with each other information about children and their parents who had been reported to the Department of Children and Family Services.
Until now, the agencies have worked independently -- in part because privacy rules strictly limit such cooperation.
Supervisors Gloria Molina and Mike Antonovich co-wrote the motion, saying the case of the 5-year-old highlights failures to communicate properly. Molina said dealing with county and state agencies that had information on the boy and his mother was like trying to unravel a bowl of spaghetti.
"That's how tangled this mess is," Molina said.
The new process was described as a "one case management system" and was imagined by some officials as a type of private online database where social workers and case managers from the various departments would post important information on children and their parents who had been reported to the children's services agency.
According to the motion, "what would have been extremely beneficial" in the boy's case was "if the county had an automated ability to verify all of the local and state agencies that are serving or monitoring a client at the same time."
Officials said they were incensed that the boy's mother, 24-year-old Starkeisha Brown, had been receiving welfare payments from a social service agency while being sought by state parole authorities.
Molina and other supervisors acknowledged that there were hurdles to be cleared and that confidentiality laws had hindered similar efforts in the past.
Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said he did not have enough information about the current proposal to make an informed decision. But in the past, civil liberties groups have challenged efforts by the county government to synthesize what they said was often private information.
