{"id":261476,"date":"2026-04-10T19:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/261476\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T19:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:09:09","slug":"santa-clara-county-accused-of-again-hiding-child-welfare-report-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/261476\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Clara County accused of again hiding child welfare report \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Santa Clara County child welfare leaders are again under fire<\/a> for withholding a critical state report.<\/p>\n

Both county Supervisor Sylvia Arenas and Child Abuse Prevention Council member Steve Baron lambasted leaders of the agency for failing to share the November state report for five months after receiving it, despite repeated requests. Arenas said not until she made a direct appeal to the state did she receive the report.<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s Department of Family and Children\u2019s Services has been monitored by the California Department of Social Services since January 2023, when it released an investigative report concluding that county policies focused more on keeping families together than keeping children safe. The agency\u2019s leaders did not notify the Board of Supervisors of that investigation until they learned that The Mercury News, investigating the fentanyl overdose death five months later of baby Phoenix Castro, planned to publish it the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis department has fully expended their credibility,\u201d Arenas said in a statement Thursday. \u201cOnce again, when faced with a report from the California Department of Social Services that shows real and serious challenges, this department continues to choose obstruction over transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baron called concealing the report \u201cof great concern,\u201d especially because of the agency\u2019s history of secrecy. \u201cWe get all the good news, but not the other news.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two \u201congoing challenges\u201d that put children at risk cited in the state\u2019s November report involved policies that handed over cases of physical abuse directly to local police instead of investigating it themselves, as well as declining to open new investigations when new allegations of abuse or neglect arose in an ongoing case.<\/p>\n

The criticism echoes similar concerns in Alameda County, where the Department of Children and Family Services there has been under scrutiny since the 2022 death of 8-year-old Sophia Mason. Santa Clara County, however, is in the midst of a major overhaul of its child welfare agency after the fentanyl overdose death of baby Phoenix Castro in May 2023, demanded by both county supervisors and the state.<\/p>\n

\"SantaSanta Clara County Supervisor Sylvia Arenas listens during a Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors meeting, where some of the Santa Clara County social workers, social worker supervisors and staff urged the supervisors to hold the leaders of the child welfare agency accountable for what they call \u201cmismanagement\u201d that has endangered child safety, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in San Jose, Calif. (Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

During a heated public meeting March 26, Arenas, who instigated reforms to the agency, said she was \u201cdisappointed that the level of transparency didn\u2019t happen because we\u2019ve been working on this in partnership \u2026 and yet the trend continues to be that that I have to find out about the report through other means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both child welfare agency Director Wendy Kinnear-Rausch and her boss, Social Services Agency Director Daniel Little, apologized to Arenas during the meeting of the Children, Seniors and Families committee overseeing the agency\u2019s overhaul.<\/p>\n

\"SantaSanta Clara County Social Services Agency Director Daniel Little gives a presentation with Damion Wright, left, director of Department of Family and Children\u2019s Services, defending their family preservation policies during a Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors meeting in San Jose, Calif., on Dec. 19, 2023. (Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0(Dai Sugano\/Bay Area News Group)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable,\u201d Little conceded. \u201cI know that that\u2019s what leads to the trust issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

County officials said the report conflicted with what state officials had told them in person. Kinnear-Rausch said she took \u201cfull ownership for the delay,\u201d explaining that she was seeking \u201cmore clarity\u201d from the state about its ongoing concerns, especially since she said the state didn\u2019t express them during a site visit a month earlier and that those issues had related to \u201cearlier concerns.\u201d Little said the ongoing challenges listed by the state were \u201cdiametrically opposed\u201d to what they had been told in person.<\/p>\n

The Department of Family and Children\u2019s Services this week did not further explain why it withheld the report from the Board of Supervisors and the county\u2019s Child Abuse Prevention Council nor detail the state\u2019s concerns outlined in the report. But in a statement Thursday, it said it \u201ccontinues to make progress\u201d on the state\u2019s corrective action plan to keep children safe.<\/p>\n

In an email this week, the state Department of Social Services said the November report noted areas \u201crequiring continued improvement\u201d and that those policies \u201care now discontinued.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the October meeting, and the subsequent report completed about a month later, we have seen continued improvements within DFCS,\u201d the state said.<\/p>\n

The Department of Family and Children\u2019s Services has been overhauling its practices since a Mercury News investigation<\/a> more than two years ago spurred Arenas and former Supervisor Cindy Chavez to demand reforms. Baby Phoenix, born with drugs in her system, was sent home from the hospital with her drug-abusing father despite dire warnings from a social worker, who had removed her older siblings from the San Jose home because of abuse and neglect. The parents had done little to participate in parenting classes and support services to win them back. The infant died at 3 months old.<\/p>\n

In early 2024, the state issued a \u201ccorrective action plan\u201d to further improve the agency and keep children safe.<\/p>\n

Since then, the agency has made numerous changes, including reversing a trend<\/a> that had dramatically reduced the number of abused or neglected children being removed from their homes. At the time, the agency \u2014 concerned that children of minority families were more often taken from their parents than White children \u2014 focused on keeping families together by offering parenting classes and other services. But as investigations by this newspaper and the state found, parents often didn\u2019t follow through with those programs because they were voluntary, and not court-ordered.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of progress has been made and they need to get credit for that,\u201d said Baron, who emphasized that he wasn\u2019t speaking for the Child Abuse Prevention Council, \u201cbut a lot of work needs to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although disappointed in the agency\u2019s lack of transparency about the state report, he praised the county for being spurred to action after concerns were raised after baby Phoenix\u2019s death. Alameda County, meanwhile, has been criticized for secrecy and apparent inaction three years after the death of Sophia Mason \u2014 whose malnourished body was found decomposing in a basement bathroom. A county investigation there has dragged on for nearly three years. More than two years after Sophia\u2019s death, a state audit found continued delays in investigating abuse.<\/p>\n

After reports about baby Phoenix\u2019s death, social workers showed up en masse to Board of Supervisors meetings to express concern about the agency\u2019s leadership, which ultimately led to the resignation<\/a> in December 2024 of director Damion Wright.<\/p>\n

Kinnear-Rausch, who had worked her way up through the agency, took over.<\/p>\n

The state said it expects the county will have completed the correction action plan by June, at which point the state would shift to a less intensive monitoring process. The county, in its statement, said that \u201cmuch important work remains\u201d and even after the work with the state concludes, the agency will work with the county board, department staff and child welfare advocates \u201cto implement evidence\u2011based best practices that strengthen child safety in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Arenas remained skeptical that the child welfare agency will be ready to do without the state oversight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I appreciate all the work that has been done since 2023,\u201d Arenas said, \u201cthe issues that were uncovered and the repeated concealing of reports from the Board leave me with grave concerns about the leadership in the county\u2019s Social Service Agency.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santa Clara County child welfare leaders are again under fire for withholding a critical state report. Both county…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,861,7,8,733,114998,138,181,23,100,385,88,90,89,198,200,2442],"class_list":{"0":"post-261476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-bay-area","9":"tag-bay-area-crime","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-child-abuse","13":"tag-child-fentanyl-deaths","14":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","15":"tag-latest-headlines","16":"tag-local-news","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-regional","19":"tag-san-jose","20":"tag-san-jose-headlines","21":"tag-san-jose-news","22":"tag-santa-clara-county","23":"tag-south-bay","24":"tag-south-bay-crime"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}