The number of at-risk children removed from their homes in Santa Clara County has soared in recent months, a dramatic shift for the county’s child welfare agency that came under intense scrutiny after a baby left in her father’s care died of a fentanyl overdose.
The new numbers were released by the county’s Department of Family and Children’s Services as part of a progress report agency leaders will present Tuesday to the Board of Supervisors who demanded reforms after the death of 3-month-old Phoenix Castro raised serious questions about the county’s mission to keep troubled families together.
In a sign that the welfare agency is giving increased emphasis to child safety, at least 52 children were removed from their homes in the last two months of 2023 – that’s more than triple the 2-month average for the previous months of that year, according to the new data from the child welfare agency.
And in an apparent acknowledgment that leaving families to voluntarily improve their parenting skills isn’t always working, 18 kids since November were placed under court supervision while still in the care of their families. That’s more than double the number of children with court supervision living at home for all other months of 2023 combined.
County Supervisor Sylvia Arenas, who has called for an overhaul of the agency, said Tuesday she is encouraged by the stepped-up oversight of troubled families but still concerned the efforts are being focused on children who are 5 and younger.
“Take a look at the rest of the kids,” said Arenas, who called on leaders of the agencies tasked with protecting children to take action. “We need to be proactive now. And the board has asked them to do that. So I’m very confused about why they wouldn’t follow board direction.”
Social worker supervisor Suzanne Romero, who called for reforms along with her colleagues at a special board of supervisors hearing in December, said she’s pleased with the progress she has seen so far. In particular, she said, lawyers in the County Counsel’s office who had been using their authority to veto the recommendations of social workers to remove children appear to be backing off.
“There have been immediate changes, and I will say we are doing a much much, much better job at protecting children and ensuring that they’re safe,” Romero said. “We’re able to make appropriate interventions without being thwarted, without being stopped.”
Arenas and Supervisor Cindy Chavez have been leading the reform efforts since an investigation by the Bay Area News Group exposed how the county disregarded multiple warning signs about placing baby Phoenix in her parents’ care before her death May 13. The San Jose girl was the first of three South Bay children younger than 2 who ingested a lethal dose of fentanyl within six months last year.
Not only had baby Phoenix’s two older siblings already been removed from their parents, the couple failed to complete the parenting and other classes required to get their children back. They also tested positive for drugs two months before baby Phoenix’s birth. Warnings from a social worker that the infant would be in mortal danger if sent home also went unheeded.
Social workers had long feared that the child welfare agency’s family preservation model imposed in 2021 – which set a much higher bar to remove children from dangerous homes – could lead to tragedy.
“While family preservation is a high priority – and I think we all agree that that should be a high priority – the focus on the child’s well being and safety has got to be number one,” Chavez said in an interview this week.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Chavez and Arenas will demand answers from Damion Wright, the director of the Department and Family and Children’s Services, and his boss, Daniel Little, who leads the county’s Department of Social Services. Little had helped initiate the family preservation model three years ago as part of an effort to reverse long-standing discrimination against families of color, who have been disproportionately caught up in the child welfare system and separated from their children who are exposed to another source of trauma in foster care.
In a statement Monday, Wright said that while his department’s “interim focus” is on the youngest children, nearly half of those removed from their homes in November and December were older than 5. The agency’s “continued focus is to keep children safe and ensure that there is the right level of intervention that matches a family’s need,” he said.
Also, he said, his office is working with dependency court “to support the monitoring and oversight of these cases that need increased involvement in support of family preservation.”
Baby Phoenix’s death, however, suggested the pendulum had swung too far in keeping families together at the expense of child safety.
Within weeks of the Bay Area News Group’s reporting, Wright introduced changes, including automatically opening a case when a baby is born with drugs in its system and giving heightened scrutiny to cases where siblings have been removed.
Arenas has been especially critical of Little and Wright and at the special hearing in December called for appointing a deputy county executive to directly oversee the Department of Family and Children’s Services instead of Little.
“Potentially they may not be the right people to lead our departments,” Arenas said. “But what is really going to tell me whether they’re the right people or not is if they follow the direction of the board and produce the kinds of outcomes that we want for children and families.”
Supervisors, however, have no authority to replace department heads. In a complicating twist, that decision would be left to County Executive James Williams, whose previous job as head of the County Counsel’s office entwined him with the mission of keeping troubled families together. In an interview shortly after the arrest of Phoenix’s father, Williams told the Bay Area News Group the county “dropped the ball” in its handling of the baby’s case.
When asked whether he has confidence in the leadership of Wright and Little, Williams in a statement Monday expressed his “appreciation to all County staff — in the Department of Family and Children’s Services, the County Counsel’s Office, and across the County—who have dedicated their professional careers to the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable children in our community.”
Under the leadership of the Board of Supervisors, he said, “the County will continue to innovate for, invest in, and serve and safeguard our children and families.”
Aside from Arenas, who took office a year ago, there appears to be little appetite among other board members to topple leadership. Board President Susan Ellenberg, in particular, says “absolutely I have trust” in county executive Williams who “remains dedicated” to improving county systems to protect children.”
“When a child dies, it’s so natural for there to be anger and frustration and a desire to have some specific person or persons deemed responsible and held individually accountable,” Ellenberg said. “In my view, and in this case, that’s somewhat of an empty solution, it doesn’t necessarily prevent such a tragedy from happening again.”