County of Santa Clara

Social Services Agency

353 West Julian Street

San Jose, California 95110-2335

April 28, 2023

Dave McDowell, Ph.D.

Chief, Children’s Services Quality Management Branch
California Dept of Social Services
744 P St., MS8-12-91
Sacramento, CA 95814

Subject: CDSS Site Visit to Social Services Agency Department of Family and
Children Services.

Dear Mr. McDowell and Team,

Thank you for your recent site visit to our County, and for your support as our
local child welfare system places greater emphasis on the long-term wellbeing of
children and families, focusing our efforts upstream on preventing child maltreatment
and also supporting family preservation. As you know, the focus of our work has been
to adjust our practices to reflect a national and statewide shift in practice based on
increasingly clear evidence demonstrating the significant and lasting trauma children
experience with even brief periods of removal from their family. As a result, our work
and that of child welfare agencies across the country is increasingly focused on child
abuse prevention and family stabilization, as well as on ensuring our practices are
better aligned with state standards and legal requirements.

Thank you for sharing your initial On-Site Review Findings with our Department
of Family & Children’s Services (“Department”). Below we provide additional
information on topics addressed in those initial findings and request additional
information from your team regarding certain findings. We look forward to meeting with
you to discuss how to further improve our practices as a Social Services Agency
Department of Family and Children Services, and we welcome additional review,
oversight, and engagement by California Department of Social Services (CDSS) with
our work in the coming weeks and months.

Intake and Emergency Response File Review:

The background section of your initial findings notes that, after completing ten
case reviews, you identified certain referrals that were evaluated out when the criteria
for an emergency response investigation had been met. You also noted that in other
cases, certain information should have included in the Structured Decision Making
(SDM) assessments that was not included or where the result of an SDM assessment
Board of Supervisors: Sylvia Arenas, Cindy Chavez, Otto Lee, Susan Ellenberg, S. Joseph Simitian
County Executive: Jeffrey V. Smith
had been overridden, and where children were returned to parent caregivers following
initial placement into protective custody by law enforcement. We look forward to
meeting with you at your earliest convenience to review those case files in detail to
identify and assess where there may have been deviations from protocol or policy,
where training should be improved, and where there are gaps in intake and emergency
response practices to address. Since you did not request immediate action or a
meeting, we are operating under the assumption that none of your case reviews gave
rise to significant or urgent concerns regarding our practices or safety concerns for any
of the children that were the subject of these reviews. If at any point you identify
concerns or practices that require immediate correction or action by the SSA
Department of Family and Children Services, please let us know.

Improved Communication with Staff Regarding Shifts in Approach:

There were several areas for improvement identified in your findings, including issues
about which our staff expressed confusion or concern regarding the SSA Department of
Family and Children Services ongoing shift in approach and policy. Some of these
came as a surprise to our SSA Department of Family and Children Services leadership
team, as significant trainings, communications, and written direction have been provided
in these areas. Your discussion with our staff highlighted the need for additional and
ongoing training, communication, clarification, and consensus building within our
organization, and we are committed to proactively addressing these issues as we
undergo this sensitive time of philosophical change, and we appreciate your partnership
in that effort. As an the SSA Department of Family and Children Services executive
leadership team, we meet with our staff regularly on the individual, unit, and bureau
levels to support messaging of values, and will continue to do so as part of our
commitment as a learning organization. Simultaneously, the SSA Department of Family
and Children Services is engaged in continuous quality improvement processes to
continually track outcomes and adapt as needed.

Reduction in Removals:
Your report highlights the reduction in removals of children from their families in
our County in the past two years. We are very proud that we have been able to keep
children safe while also preventing unnecessary separation from family members, which
is a direct reflection of the hard work of our social workers in the field, who are engaging
with families to solve the presenting problems on each case, and of the myriad supports
we have put in place locally to safely maintain children with their families. Of note, our
local data on recurrence of maltreatment is also trending downward, and at the last
available point-in-time, was lower than the state average. We are closely monitoring
that data point as we assess our progress and ensure we continue to be laser focused
on protecting children from harm. To be perfectly clear, it is unacceptable for any child
who is brought to the County’s attention to ever be left in an unsafe situation. As we
strive to support families, the County keeps child safety diligently in mind and is a non-
negotiable outcome measure. We expect our social workers to follow all laws and
policies regarding child safety as well as reasonable efforts to prevent a removal. As of
the writing of this report, the SSA Department of Family and Children Services
executive team is unaware of a single example where a child was determined to be
“unsafe” per SDM and was subsequently left in the care of the offending parent.
Fidelity to the Structured Decision Making (SDM) Model:
One area of focus in your report was fidelity to the Structured Decision Making
(SDM) model. As discussed at the time of the site visit, the Department engaged
Evident Change, a national leader in this area, to provide a third round of mandatory
SDM training and Safety Organized Practice (SOP) training. Further, for the past
several months, Evident Change has supported in the facilitation of an SDM and SOP
implementation planning team involving line staff, supervisors, and managers from
across our SSA Department of Family and Children Services to identify and collectively
plan to address gaps in understanding. That team is in the process of developing
additional written materials for staff to clarify outstanding areas of confusion, as well as
developing a process for routine review of high-risk cases. We would be happy to
provide you with our existing training materials as well as the additional resources we
are developing.

SSA Department of Family and Children Services believes in transparent

communication with families. As such, DFCS staff are trained to document
contingencies into the safety plan which would include possible department responses
should a safety plan become non-viable. The responses could include reworking the
safety plan to provide for (a) child(ren)’s safety and addressing concern/ worries by
parent(s). DFCS staff also communicate other alternatives, as appropriate, up to filing a
juvenile court petition. As outlined in DFCS’ policy, staff are also required to follow SDM
guidance, which provides guidance around safety planning within its’ tools. Lastly, SSA
Department of Family and Children Services executives are facilitating a workgroup to
review current Operation Policies and Procedures (OPP) to ensure all policies are
current. CDSS can be provided copies of the updated policies once finalized. SSA
Department of Family and Children Services has also partnered with Evident Change to
provide ongoing training around safety assessments and safety planning for all DFCS
social workers.

Regarding referral timeliness, your findings recommend that we have a

supervisor review any referrals open longer than 30 days. This is already a requirement
under our current SSA Department of Family and Children Services policy. However, to
ensure adherence to this policy, the SSA Department of Family and Children Services
has an identified CQI program manager who sends a weekly report for referrals open
longer than 30 days to all supervisors. Any referral not closing in 30 days must be
reviewed by the division manager for further action needed. This requirement is also
outlined in posted policy.

Evident Change will also provide coaching to supervisors to support them in

developing the skills to in turn coach their social work staff on an ongoing basis. In
addition, we have also engaged Bay Area Academy to provide further training on safety
planning, as requested by staff. Fidelity to SDM and SOP are key to our vision of the
future of child welfare locally, and we are committed to ensuring their full and successful
implementation.
For your reference, we have attached data regarding our override rates for SDM.
While of course the safety tool cannot be overridden, we wanted to highlight that overall,
our County is on the low end statewide for SDM overrides for the other SDM tools that
are subject to such override, and that the majority of our overrides are upgrades to
provide greater support to the family than the tool indicates, not to downgrade. See
Attachment A.

The Role of County Counsel:

Another key topic raised was staff confusion about the role of County Counsel in
child welfare decision making, and related confusion regarding legal standards
applicable to child welfare proceedings. Because the SDM tools are modeled closely
on state law, we are optimistic that the additional SDM training completed by staff will
reduce confusion about the applicable legal standards. Additionally, given the
confusion regarding County Counsel’s role in these processes reflected in the staff
statements in the site visit, we have issued clarification reinforcing the role of County
Counsel as legal advisor. As reflected in past and recent communications to our staff,
the role of County Counsel is to provide advice to the SSA Department of Family and
Children Services and its staff on compliance with state and federal law; it is not their
role to supplant social workers’ case-related decision-making. We have included our
recent communication to staff on this point as an attachment to this letter for your
review. See Attachment B. Per your request, we have also attached prior written
guidance issued to staff regarding the legal staffing process. See Attachment C. We
are also building a process to ensure that critical decision points are fully and clearly
documented in the case record, per your recommendation. We suspect that much of
the staff confusion on this point stems from the fact that we have requested greater
support from County Counsel in recent years due to changing legal requirements in
child welfare and the need to adjust longstanding practices to better align with legal
mandates. As a result, County Counsel has been more engaged with our staff than was
historically the case.

Cross Agency Protocol:

Staff also identified challenges with a local cross-agency protocol that requires
SSA Department of Family and Children staff to respond in tandem with law
enforcement for every case of physical abuse or sexual abuse. We appreciate the
tension staff identified in this area and have made progress to address it by meeting
with our local law enforcement agencies to narrow the circumstances in which response
in tandem with law enforcement is necessary. That change was agreed to by the
protocol’s drafting committee, and the revised protocol was recently adopted by the
involved law enforcement agencies. We anticipate that this change will promote
consistency across our SSA Department of Family and Children Services on this issue.

Evaluation and Assessment:

Interviewed staff highlighted the challenges in objectively assessing the long-
term outcomes for families when greater family engagement is utilized to prevent
removal. This is an ongoing conversation underway with our local partners across our
County, and a key area of focus for our SSA Department of Family and Children
Services. As you are aware, many of the models for data tracking in child welfare
pertain to the outcomes for children in the foster care system. There are challenges in
measuring the long-term impact to children in the community when those children and
families are not removed and brought within the formal child welfare system. We are
keeping a close watch on the federal recurrence of maltreatment measure, which thus
far we have been pleased to see trending downward and intend to add that measure as
a focus in our System Improvement Plan. However, we recognize that additional
dynamic measures are desirable, and that there are statewide challenges with data
collection due to the limitations of the CWS/CMS system. We would heartily welcome
your support in developing new methods of tracking and gathering data that could guide
assessment of our initiatives and help frame future direction.

School-Based Interviews:
Finally, you requested information about our county policies on investigatory
interviews of children at school. Please see our policies in this regard, included here as
Attachment D. Since the case of Greene v. Camreta in 2009, our County has routinely
sought parental consent to interview children at school or elsewhere, whenever it is safe
to do so, based on our understanding of the legal requirements in this area. Where
seeking parental consent would endanger the child or compromise the investigation, the
social worker should seek a court order allowing the SSA Department of Family and
Children Services to interview the child separately. The juvenile court is available at all
times to consider requests for interview orders on an urgent basis, and our social
workers are able to obtain them in real time without significant delay. Our local juvenile
dependency court issued 193 orders for DFCS social workers to interview children in
calendar year 2022, and many more children were interviewed at school.

We look forward to working in partnership with you as we implement the

recommendations you provided, provide you with additional information, and obtain
further information from you on certain of your observations and findings. We thank you
again for your support as we navigate these new waters, and we look forward to our
ongoing partnership.

Sincerely,

Daniel Little,
Director
Department of Family and Children Services
Social Services Agency
Santa Clara County
 CDSS Site Visit Response letter Attachment A

Overrides SafeMeasures

Data pulled 3/30/2023

SDM Hotline Tool Response Priority Overrides

Last 12 months
SDM Hotline Screening Overrides

Last 12 months
SDM Ongoing Risk Assessment Overrides

March 2023 – month to date

Feb 2023

Jan 2023
SDM Risk Assessment Overrides

Last 12 months
 CDSS Site Visit Attachment B
County of Santa Clara
Social Services Agency

373 West Julian Street

San Jose, California 95110-2335

MEMORANDUM

Date: April 3, 2023

To: DFCS Staff

From: Daniel Little, Director

Subject: Child Safety and Well Being

As you all know, our ultimate responsibility as a child welfare agency is to make decisions in the
best interests of children and families. Child safety and well-being are our first priority. These
are often difficult decisions, and we are called upon to make them under intense and high-
stakes circumstances. As we work together to make these decisions, we keep our core
principles always in mind-- Children do best with their families. Families have the tools to solve
their own problems if given the opportunity. Family engagement is not negotiable. There is no
safety without healing.
As we do this work together, your management and executive teams are here to share in
navigating the cases that challenge us as an organization. We strongly encourage you to
elevate any case where you feel the circumstances warrant further discussion.
For your reference, here is the guidance I issued on January 7, 2021:
“In stances where we are recommending a removal, but County Counsel feels we did not satisfy
a legal mandate, one of the execs will be included in the process to weigh in. If we're going to
recommend actions that go counter to County Counsel legal advice, I want to make sure we
have a chance to review at all levels. This also places the burden of the final decision on the
exec team. This process is in no way an attempt to remove the clinical expertise that is used to
make decisions. If the tools we use were created correctly, our child welfare assessments and
recommendations should be supported by legal mandates. In rare situations where this isn't the
case, we just need to look a little deeper.”
It is my continued expectation that a decision to proceed with a removal of a child from a family
home against legal advice must be escalated and ultimately made by a DFCS Executive. My
goal is to support you through the critical work you do.
Please keep in mind that before legal consultation is sought, SDM tools must be fully completed
and current, and potential resources to establish safety in the family home should be fully vetted
with the DFCS supervisor and division manager. If following legal consultation, the social
worker wishes to pursue an action that differs from advice, please elevate the case for
additional review.
Please don’t hesitate to raise any additional questions to my attention.
We are grateful for your strength and flexibility as we grow together.

Board of Supervisors: Sylvia Arenas, Cindy Chavez, Otto Lee, Susan Ellenberg, S. Joseph Simitian
County Executive: Jeffrey V. Smith
 CDSS Site Visit Response Attachment C

From: Little, Daniel <[email protected]>

Sent: Thursday, January 7, 2021 12:20 PM
To: DFCS Supervisors <[email protected]>; DFCS Program Managers
<[email protected]>; DFCS Coordinator II
<[email protected]>; DFCS DIRECT REPORTS <[email protected]>;
DFCS Program Managers WOOC <[email protected]>; DFCS Supervisors
WOOC <[email protected]>
Cc: Kinnear, Wendy <[email protected]>; Hankins, Jamila
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Emergency Response Advice

Hi all and happy Thursday. I wanted to follow-up on this message as it's clear the intent of this
practice does not match the impact that was felt by many of you. I apologize for the miss and
see that we could have communicated this differently. I was operating under an assumption
that the practice outline below had been in place for some time, but had not been sent out
broadly.

As Hilary described below, County County advised on when they feel we have sufficient
evidence to support legally mandatory efforts to prevent the need for removal of children from
their homes, as well as if we have enough evidence to support a removal. In stances where we
are recommending a removal, but County Counsel feels we did not satisfy a legal mandate, one
of the execs will be included in the process to weigh in. If we're going to recommend actions
that go counter to County Counsel legal advice, I want to make sure we have a chance to review
at all levels. This also places the burden of the final decision on the exec team. This process is
in no way an attempt to remove the clinical expertise that is used to make decisions. If the tools
we use were created correctly, our child welfare assessments and recommendations should be
supported by legal mandates. in rare situations where this isn't the case. we just need to look a
little deeper.

Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. My hope is that this can be a
support to everyone, but I do understand it may feel like additional oversight.

Daniel Little, MSW

Director
Department of Family and Children's Services
Social Services Agency
County of Santa Clara
373 W. Julian Street, Ste 500
San Jose, CA 95110-2335
[email protected]
408-501-6802
From: Kerrigan, Hilary <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 4, 2021 3:49 PM
To: DFCS Supervisors <[email protected]>; DFCS Program Managers
<[email protected]>; DFCS Coordinator II
<[email protected]>; DFCS DIRECT REPORTS <[email protected]>;
DFCS Program Managers WOOC <[email protected]>; DFCS Supervisors
WOOC <[email protected]>
Cc: Little, Daniel <[email protected]>; Kinnear, Wendy <[email protected]>;
Hankins, Jamila <[email protected]>; CCO - JSO_CDU Attys <cco-
[email protected]>
Subject: Emergency Response Advice

Good afternoon and Happy New Year to all. Please share the message below with your case-carrying
staff.

Case carrying staff,

We write to confirm some management directions being re-issued cooperatively between DFCS and the
Office of the County Counsel regarding emergency response advice. As you know, the County and our
Departments are strongly committed to racial justice and to healing the historical wounds underlying
disproportionate representation of children of color in the child welfare system. To that end, we are
partnering to ensure better consistency in our emergency response work with respect to making and
documenting legally mandatory efforts to prevent the need for removal of children from their homes,
and to engage relatives and previously non-custodial parents before a removal wherever
possible. When a removal cannot be avoided, legal counsel must be closely involved to individually
assess whether the evidence meets the high legal standard for removal.

To ensure consistency, we are confirming management’s direction that any action by the County
involving a petition being filed in the court, a warrantless removal from a parent, or a warrant being
sought to remove a child from a parent must be consistent with legal advice from the Office of the
County Counsel, unless Wendy Kinnear, Jamila Hankins, or Daniel Little decides otherwise. Bhavit
Madhvani will be the primary legal advisor on emergency response and petition review for the Office of
the County Counsel beginning January 11, 2021. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Thank you,

Daniel Little and Hilary Kerrigan

 CDSS Site visit Response Attachment D

County of Santa Clara

Social Services Agency
Department of Family & Children’s Services

373 West Julian Street, 5th Fl.

San Jose, California 95110-2335

Child Abuse Reporting and Investigation FAQs

1. As a mandated reporter, what is my role for investigating the concern?

a. Your responsibility as a Mandated Reporter is to report known or suspected child
abuse or neglect, not to investigate or determine whether there actually was
abuse or neglect. The duty and responsibility to investigate belongs to the child
protection agency. When child abuse is suspected you must report to the Child
Welfare Office (DFCS) at 1‐833‐722‐5437 (833‐SCC‐KIDS) or efax to
[email protected] OR to local Law Enforcement. Once a report is
made the reporter must follow up with the written report (SS 8572) within 36
hours.
2. I’ve heard there is a new child welfare policy regarding obtaining parental consent prior
to investigating allegations of child abuse or neglect.
a. The law is well settled that parental consent is required prior to an interview
being conducted of their child by a child welfare worker. Since the case of
Greene v. Camreta in 2009, the Department of Family and Children’s Services
(DFCS) has been required to get parental consent prior to interviewing a child. If
DFCS is not able to obtain consent, we may seek an individual court order to
interview a particular child under certain circumstances including, but not
limited to, when requesting consent would endanger the child’s physical safety
or there is evidence to suggest the parent would influence the child’s responses.
Typically, this is when the child is communicating fear of parent knowing of the
disclosure. This is an important piece of information to include as the reporting
party. DFCS has standard processes in place for seeking a court order on a timely
basis.
3. What happens after I make a call to the CANC?
a. If a call meets state‐defined thresholds as determined by a trained clinician at
the CANC, DFCS will assign an emergency response social worker to complete an
in‐person response. There are three response types defined in statute and
related regulations:
i. Joint Response (JR)‐ 60 minute response time. Initiated by Law
Enforcement when there is a situation where child abuse/neglect has
occurred or there is substantial risk of abuse and/or neglect to occur to a
child which may result in protective custody of a child. The officer waits
at the scene for the Social Worker to arrive and does not leave until there
is a determination as to what will happen with the child.
 1. Purpose‐ Perform a Joint Investigation where social worker’s and
officer’s mandates are met with the intent to decrease trauma to
the child and family while keeping the child safe. Joint Response
protocols are covered in more detail in the Santa Clara County
Child Abuse Protocol for Law Enforcement. The protocol is located
on the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s website.
ii. Immediate Response (IR)‐ 2 to 24 hours. The social worker responds to
the location of the child to assess for safety. Depending on the severity
or type of injury, or in the case of disclosure of sexual abuse by the child,
the Social Worker may call Law Enforcement for assistance.
iii. 10 Day Referral
1. When there is no imminent danger to the health or well‐being of
a child.
2. The department is required to make contact with the child
within 10 days of the report being made.
iv. Upon conclusion of the investigation (approximately 30 days), Mandated
Reporters should receive an “Emergency Response Notice of Referral
Disposition”. This will include general information about the response
including the social worker name and phone number.
4. When can DFCS remove a child from the child’s parent?
a. Parents and children have constitutional rights to be free from government
intervention in their relationships with one another. DFCS is legally required to
make efforts to maintain children in their homes, even when an investigation
establishes that abuse or neglect occurred. It is only when the child is in
immediate danger and effective safety planning is not possible that DFCS will
seek a warrant to remove a child from their parents.
5. When can police take a child into protective custody, and what happens next?
a. Law enforcement has legal authority to take children into protective custody
under broader circumstances than DFCS. However, once the child is delivered to
DFCS, the child must be released to the parents unless retaining the child in
custody is a matter of immediate and urgent necessity.
6. Who do I contact if I have concerns and/or further questions?
a. Please contact the school district liaison for direct questions or support from the
school district. Each school district’s contact person can be found at this site1.
b. DFCS has developed a Program Audit division. You can reach Program Audit by
calling 408‐501‐6876. Program Audit can address process and procedures
questions or concerns.
7. Are there additional services or supports available to families?

1
https://www.sccoe.org/foster-homeless/Pages/District-Liaison-List.aspx
 a. Currently, DFCS has agreements in place for direct referrals to Differential
Response community providers to support families at Gilroy Unified School
District, Morgan Hill Unified School District, Alum Rock School District, Franklin
McKinley School District, and Downtown College Prep Charter program. If there
is a school district in one of our identified high referral zip code areas (95111,
95112, 95116, 95122, 95127, 95020) who wants to participate in the DR
program, the DFCS point of contact for more information is
[email protected]‐ Differential Response Social Services Management
Analyst.
b. Differential Response is a supportive model in which providers work with
families to offer case management and connections to a wide range of additional
community‐based services.
8. What is a Safety Plan, and how does DFCS know that it will keep the child safe?
a. The DFCS social worker completes a safety assessment from the statewide
Structure Decision Making assessment model. This assessment identifies current
safety threats which inform what the safety plan needs to focus on; this is done
by enlisting information from the family and collaterals in a collaborative manner
to elicit harm and danger statements
i. The social worker assesses whether there are dangers that place the
children at risk of significant harm in the short term and if so, creates an
immediate and short‐term safety plan
1. The social worker will define and differentiate harm and danger
from complicating factors, and co‐design behaviorally‐based
safety goals.
a. Harm Statement ‐ A simple, concise, behaviorally‐based
statement that identifies past caregiver behaviors that
negatively impacted the child’s safety.
b. Danger Statement – A simple, concise, behaviorally‐based
statement identifying the caregiver behavior that may
cause specific future danger to the child.
b. The social worker ensures the child and parents or caretakers understand the
reason for DFCS intervention, what is happening now, and what the safety
planning process involves.
i. The social worker will enlist the involvement of and help establish safety
and support network members and other professionals to address harm,
danger, and complicating factors.
c. Establish a detailed safety plan
i. The social worker identifies important non‐negotiables for the safety
planning process
ii. Safety Goals have to be established to ensure children remain safe and
protected
 1. Address all harm/ danger; if not achieved, the social worker needs
to re‐think the safety plan
2. All parties to the safety plan should receive a copy and sign
iii. The social worker will monitor and review the safety plan at specified
intervals
iv. A Child and Family Team Meeting (CFT) is held as soon as possible to
continue planning and to identify the supports needed. Family, natural
supports, service providers, schools, and community supports participate
in the CFT.
9. What role does the Children’s Advocacy Center of SCC play in responding to allegations
of abuse?
a. The Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) of Santa Clara County serves an important
role in identifying and prosecuting child abuse, and helping young victims heal
from their painful experiences. The CAC is a child‐friendly facility in which law
enforcement, child protection, prosecution, mental health, medical and victim
advocacy professionals work together to investigate abuse, help children heal
from abuse, and hold offenders accountable. The CAC receives referrals for
alleged victim(s) of child sexual assault and physical abuse referred by an
investigative agency who are involved in an open investigation from a report
made to the child abuse hotline. Once the report is made and accepted for
investigation, law enforcement or the Department of Family & Children’s
Services will arrange for a forensic interview and or medical evaluation at the
CAC. The services provided at the CAC are free, comprehensive, and designed to
meet the special needs of each child and their protective caregivers.
b. The CAC offers the following services on site:
i. Forensic Interviews
1. Forensic Interviews provide children with a safe space to tell their
story to experts who will listen to them, protect them, and help
them heal. Forensic interviews are essential in the investigation of
child physical and sexual abuse cases and can produce evidence
critical to the investigation and criminal prosecution.
ii. Medical Exams
1. The CAC’s specially trained medical staff provides age‐appropriate
evaluations for young victims of abuse and neglect. Youth often
are relieved to learn that their bodies are healthy.
iii. Victim Services & Advocacy
1. Victim Advocates support the child and caregivers throughout the
investigation and prosecution of the case. The CAC connects
families to support services and victim compensation.
iv. Mental Health
 1. The CAC partners with community based mental health specialists
who are trained and credentialed in trauma informed treatment
for the entire family. Referrals for individual and group therapy is
available.
10. How are children and families referred to the Child Advocacy Center?
a. Referrals to the CAC for investigative purposes come from three sources‐DFCS,
Law Enforcement and Medical Partners. Schools are not a part of the
investigative team and therefore would not interface with the CAC. In some
cases, when appropriate, the CAC may have to reach out to a school to receive
additional information regarding a disclosure, etc. but they would not regularly
be included in our MDTs or Case Reviews.
CDSS requested “[a] description from County Counsel of their role in providing determinations for
removal.”

Response:

The Office of the County Counsel does not make the decision whether a child will be removed from
their parents; this decision is made by the Social Services Agency’s Department of Family and
Children’s Services (DFCS). DFCS Leadership has instructed social workers that if they want to take a
course of action that is inconsistent with legal advice received from the Office of the County in the
course of an investigation, the matter is to be escalated to a DFCS Executive who will make the final
determination. Social workers expressing confusion about this protocol is surprising and not
grounded in their actual day-to-day practice – they have been trained on the protocol for escalation
to a DFCS Executive for a final decision when they disagree with legal advice and, more importantly,
regularly use it. In addition to the training, DFCS Leadership communicated these instructions to
staff previously and have reinforced this communication consistently. For example, all new staff
receive training on the emergency response legal standards and the internal warrant decision-
making process. See attached training slide from the “ER nuts and bolts” training, provided twice a
year, most recently on February 13, 2023, July 26, 2022, and February 27, 2022. Further, our Office
provided an emergency response refresher training to all impacted DFCS staff in the summer and fall
of 2021. The lead of the Child and Family Protection Team also held question and answer sessions
in tandem with DFCS executives for every emergency response and dependency investigations team
within DFCS to ensure clear understanding of roles and expectations. When a case is escalated, the
DFCS Executive, after reviewing the SDM tool and related case information, in some instances
agrees with social worker and proceeds with removal, and in other instances, determines that more
is needed in the investigation, and they may provide instructions on further steps (e.g., additional
supports can be leveraged, or the social worker must investigate further certain aspects of the case).
Either way, DFCS decides how a case moves forward.

Below is an overview of the Office of the County Counsel more broadly, and well as additional
background on how the Office provides legal advice to the County and DFCS.

The County Counsel is the chief legal advisor and representative to the County of Santa Clara,
including the Board of Supervisors and all County agencies and departments. The Office of the
County Counsel provides legal assistance to County departments in addressing a wide range of
diverse issues in every area of internal and external service delivery, including but not limited to:
land use, tax assessments, labor relations, personnel matters, risk management, health and hospital
issues, child dependency and adult protective services, law and justice, public finance, and property
management. Within the Office, the Child and Family Protection Team works with the Social
Services Agency’s DFCS in its efforts to prevent child abuse and neglect, address issues of
disproportionality within the child welfare system, and support families at risk of becoming involved
in the juvenile dependency system. Attorneys on this team advise DFCS social workers as they
investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect, carefully reviewing each case before it is filed to
ensure legal sufficiency and the consistent application of appropriate legal standards. Once cases
are filed, Child and Family Protection Team attorneys litigate them in the juvenile dependency court.
They regularly appear in court to handle statutorily required hearings, mediations, settlement
conferences, and trials. The Child and Family Protection Team also handles appeals of juvenile
dependency issues to the Sixth District Court of Appeal.

As outlined above, the Child and Family Protection Team attorneys do not make the decision
whether a child should be removed; they do provide legal advice as to whether there is sufficient
evidence to meet the legal standard for removal under Welfare and Institution Code sections 306,
309, 340, and other applicable statutory provisions. DFCS has a close working relationship with the
Child and Family Protection Team attorneys.

In January of 2006, at DFCS’s request, our Office began advising emergency response social workers
on a 24-hour basis. The purpose was to provide immediate legal consultation on pending
investigations, to help Emergency Response (ER) staff understand and incorporate recent changes in
the law affecting child welfare investigations, to help ER staff minimize County risk exposure, and to
help staff better understand the various legal mandates that govern child welfare investigations.
For the past 17 years, DFCS social workers have conferred with our Office in every case before
seeking a warrant to remove a child from a parent’s care. Our Office provides legal advice and
support only, and does not make removal or any other child welfare decisions.

In recent years, DFCS Leadership refocused their efforts with a singular focus on child safety and
well-being through increased family engagement and ensuring compliance with evidence-based best
practices and consistent decision-making. As part of this larger effort, in 2020 the Department
modified its internal processes for seeking warrants to remove children from their parents’ care.
The prior practice dictated that once the social worker had conferred with the Office of the County
Counsel, the social worker could seek a warrant from the juvenile court with mid-manager approval.
The updated practice required elevation to the DFCS Executive level for a final decision if the desired
action was to be pursued against legal advice. This direction to staff from DFCS Leadership did not
grant any child welfare decision-making authority to the Office of the County Counsel, but rather
centralized and standardized decision-making within the child welfare agency itself. Social workers
use the escalation protocol whenever needed. Our Office has provided periodic training to social
workers as outlined above. To the degree there remains social worker confusion in this area, it is
not born out in the practice – social workers escalate cases to DFCS Executives when needed.
Nevertheless, we will continue to emphasize and reiterate DFCS’s Leadership direction as well as the
escalation protocol in the context of our day-to-day advice.