Secrecy lifted from child death cases
| Saturday, Sep 26 2009 08:24 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Sep 26 2009 08:26 PM
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The tragic details of 2-year-old Guillermo Alvarez's life and death appeared in a recent Californian article. But it took an act of the state Legislature and the signature of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to lift the veil of secrecy from tragedies such as Guillermo's.
Senate Bill 39, authored jn 2007 by former state Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, gives limited public access to juvenile records when a child dies in the state's care, such as foster care situations.
Before this disclosure requirement became law, the public was left to wonder about the circumstances of children's deaths and how the system may have failed to protect them.
Tragically, this has been the case for far too many children in Kern County who have died at the hands of abusers, with the public unable to learn how that could happen.
So many Kern County children died as a result of abuse in an 18-month period in the mid-1990s that this newspaper successfully pleaded with the Legislature to conduct a confidential audit of child protective services to identify system failures.
The legislative audit -- which was the only recourse available because juvenile records were considered "confidential" and closed to the public -- identified several shortcomings in Kern County's services, as well as in protective services provided in other counties. The findings resulted in limited reforms.
Abusers continued to kill children in Kern County and other California communities. Without the ability of the public to objectively monitor these cases and determine if child protective services' programs and procedures were effective and being followed, little improvement was made.
That was until 2007, when Migden and legislators intervened, agreeing to lift the veil of secrecy in limited cases. The disclosure of details surrounding Guillermo's death in June is the result.
The intent is not to point fingers, or make villains out of sometimes-overworked staff members assigned to protect our most vulnerable children. Rather, it is to identify problems and fix them. Government works best when the bright light of public scrutiny shines.
Kern County Human Services Director Pat Cheadle acknowledges mistakes were made during her department's investigation of allegations that Gina Serna, Guillermo's mother, was neglecting the boy. Cheadle said the social worker should have labeled the child neglect case against Serna "substantiated," rather than giving it the less serious "inconclusive" label. She said the social worker should have visited the family's new home and followed procedures for drug-testing the mother.
There is no way of knowing if these steps would have prevented Guillermo's death. But clearly, procedures were not followed in this case. The mother's ex-boyfriend was arrested on suspicion of murder, but was later released. Prosecutors expect to refile charges after further investigation.
"A child's death from abuse or neglect often leads to calls for reform of the public child protection system. Without accurate and complete information about the circumstances leading to the child's death, public debate is stymied and the reforms, if adopted at all, may do little to prevent further tragedies," a legislative analysis of SB 39 noted.
The investigation of young Guillermo's death and the prosecution of the person responsible will unfold in the courts over the next several months.
But already we know -- thanks to the new disclosure law -- that procedures were not followed by county social workers and perhaps others who responded to earlier complaints. The system failed Guillermo. It may be failing other children.
From what we know already, Kern County supervisors must ask Cheadle to explain system failures and what she and her staff are doing to correct them.
