Reuniting families turning into success story for county
Number of children living in foster homes drops nearly 10%
By Troy Anderson
Staff Writer Los Angeles Daily News
Saturday, June 19, 2004 -

For Gino Lee, failing grades were one of the symptoms of his unhappiness while living in foster homes for most of his 10 years.

But since being reunited with his family a year ago, Gino has twice made the honor roll and received an award naming him the "the multiplication champ."

"He gives his teachers a calculator and tells them to try to keep up with him," said his proud father, Carl Lee, of Canoga Park. "He has an outstanding knowledge of the number system. When he was in foster care, they said he had a learning disability and made him repeat kindergarten."

Gino is one of 4,794 foster children who have been reunited with their families since early 2003, when David Sanders took over as director of the long-troubled Department of Children and Family Services.

Under his direction, officials have begun a radical culture change and an unprecedented push to return to their families many children who have spent years shuffling through foster homes.

Since Sanders started, the number of children living in Los Angeles County foster homes has fallen from 30,658 to 27,806, a nearly 10 percent drop. The $1.4 billion DCFS budget pays to support a total of about 75,000 children in the system and adoptive homes.

Meanwhile, the number of children removed from their homes -- known as the detention rate -- has declined from 657 last June to 598 in February, also a 10 percent reduction.

"When we go out to investigate and decide whether a family needs child protective services, more often than not we are deciding we can serve the family in their home and that has been a dramatic change for the department," Sanders said in a recent interview.

In December, DCFS admitted for the first time in a series of Daily News stories that half of the children in the system had been unnecessarily taken from their families and placed in more dangerous environments because of financial incentives in state and federal laws.

These laws, according to state documents, encourage counties and their private contractors to earn money by placing and keeping children in foster care. The county receives $30,000 to $150,000 in state and federal revenues annually for each child placed.

"Kids need to be home," DCFS spokesman Stuart Riskin said. "We need to look at the strengths of the family and work from there. We're going back to square one. We're going back to the family and all the positives the family has."

The Board of Supervisors voted recently to seek a federal waiver that would allow DCFS to spend more than $250 million of its budget on services to help keep families together, including drug and alcohol programs, housing assistance, counseling and other services.

As he has directed his workers to try to keep families safely together, Sanders said the rate of abuse and neglect in the general population in the county has remained flat and mistreatment rates in foster care have dropped.

"I believe that whenever it's possible, we need to reunify, if there is a chance of rehabilitating the family," said Daphna Edwards Ziman, chairwoman and founder of Beverly Hills-based Children Uniting Nations. "This is a good thing, but without the financial support and services, it won't work.

"We need to put out a cry for help for people to become foster parents," she said. "Maybe we can create foster homes that are not using the system as an alternative to welfare. I think that's where  the biggest problem lies."

Sanders said DCFS, school districts and numerous agencies that work with abused and neglected children are reaching out to churches to help troubled families and recruit potential foster and adoptive parents.

Lee lost his son to the foster care system in 1993, after Gino's mother, Gina, suffered a medical problem shortly after the boy's birth.

Despite a lack of evidence that the boy had been abused or neglected by his parents, Gino remained in foster care and grew up in a succession of seven homes. In some, he was physically abused.

His father fought unsuccessfully for years to get his son back and formed the Southern California Family Group Decision-Making Institute to help other parents get their children out of foster care.

After a new social worker took a fresh look at the case, Lee's family was referred to a program being expanded countywide that brings family, friends and clergy members together to craft solutions to reunify or keep families together.

Last summer, a judge approved Gino's return home.

"I'm really proud of him," Carl Lee said. "First of all, because he's my son, and secondly, because he did something the normal child doesn't do. He decided not to give up and he decided to beat the odds."

Troy Anderson, (213) 974-8985 troy.anderson@dailynews.com