Los Angeles County Commission on Children and Families

Swiftly following The Imprint‘s story this week exposing that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) had not investigated 4,000 allegations of serious child abuse in 2018-19, a top officer with the department said that it has launched a review of those practices.

On Monday, the tension that has gripped Los Angeles County’s child welfare establishment since the mysterious July death of 4-year-old Noah Cuatro spilled out into public view. At a meeting of the county’s Commission for Children and Families, the chiefs of both the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the Office of Child Protection (OCP) grew visibly and audibly frustrated with commissioners’ questions about the Cuatro case.

Los Angeles County has hired a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit to help more relative caregivers through the foster care certification process as the county runs up against a looming state deadline. On Tuesday, the county’s Board of Supervisors approved a $400,000 request to hire A Second Chance, Inc.,

At a meeting of the Los Angeles County Children’s Commission on Monday, several Los Angeles County agencies and advocates described the impact of tightening federal immigration policies on children and families in the county.

Extended family, or kinship care, in Los Angeles continues to be an important resource for maintaining family ties for youth in foster care. As some Millennials (ages 18-35) move into the caregiving realm for their younger siblings, the child welfare system has failed to embrace this family configuration, keeping the focus instead almost exclusively on Baby Boomers (ages 52-70) who make up the vast majority of traditional caregiving relatives.

Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman may have left us last week, but his amazing legacy lives on. Ed’s long career in government at the city and county level was one of great distinction.

Over the past two weeks, Los Angeles County First District Supervisor Hilda Solis appointed two community development nonprofit leaders to the county’s Commission for Children and Families and appointed a public interest lawyer to the county’s Policy Roundtable for Child Care and Development, according to a press release from Solis’ office.