California Foster Care Abuse Attorneys

Why does sexual abuse continue to happen to foster kids?

Sexual abuse and assault often go unreported. This is especially true for children, who may believe that great harm will come to them or their families if they speak up about what is happening to them. For children in the system, however, the numbers can be even lower.

Children already feel unsafe

Foster kids – especially those who are not being raised in a relative’s home – face unique challenges. In some instances, they are bounced from home to home. They haven’t developed any close, long-term relationships (with other kids or with authority figures, including foster parents), so they don’t know whom to tell. They may have been abused, sexually or otherwise, in an earlier placement, and have come to internalize that trauma as simply part of their lives. They may feel they will not be believed if they come forward.

Remember, too, that some children are removed from their homes precisely because they were victimized. By telling the truth about what happened, these children may believe that they are the ones who “ruined” their families and that they deserve to be punished; as such, being abused again could seem like a just punishment for their actions.

Child Protective Services in California is underperforming

The sad truth is, foster care and CPS is a numbers game – and the kids are losing at every turn. In 2017, per the Children’s Bureau report, California:

• Had a CPS workforce of 4,963 people. These are the men and women who handle intakes, screening, investigation, and alternative responses.
• Handled 400,187 referrals of alleged abuse or maltreatment of some kind about 44 calls per every 1,000 children.
  • 365,921 referrals resulted in an investigation or “alternative response”
• Identified 3,497 sexually abused children.

There are not enough workers and too many cases, which leads to one outstanding and overwhelming problem: California takes much, much too long to help kids. The Los Angeles Daily News reported that, in 2017, the state failed to complete 78 out of every 100 investigations in a timely manner:

State officials were slow to investigate complaints of abuse or neglect, failed to notify investigators of serious sexual abuse allegations and didn’t follow up to ensure cases were resolved, according to an audit released last week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.

In some cases, investigations took more than a year to complete, according to the report. It said these problems arose either because officials didn’t follow procedures or because they had not been properly trained to handle complaints.

The system is failing our kids.