Santa Clara County\u2019s child welfare agency placed vulnerable children in foster homes before completing required safety checks and repeatedly failed to document whether other checks had occurred, a state investigation released Thursday found.<\/p>\n
The report found \u201csignificant systemic gaps\u201d in documenting key safety-related responsibilities and outlined \u201cconcerns that create risks to child safety and well-being,\u201d Angie Schwartz, deputy director of the state\u2019s Children and Family Services Division, said in a letter to the county.<\/p>\n
Only six of 60 emergency placements reviewed had documentation showing full compliance with legal requirements, the report found.<\/p>\n
The state was already overseeing major reforms to the county\u2019s Department of Family and Children\u2019s Services following the 2023 fentanyl overdose death of 3-month-old Phoenix Castro when 2-year-old Jaxon Juarez died in April in the foster home of his cousin, prompting the new investigation. The agency had allowed Phoenix to stay with her drug-addicted parents.<\/p>\n
Jaxon\u2019s cousin had a past felony child endangerment conviction \u2014 a conviction that should have been disqualifying under county policy and state law. That cousin\u2019s teenage son is now charged with Jaxon\u2019s murder and multiple counts of sexually assaulting him.<\/p>\n
In more than half the foster care cases reviewed by the state in the new report, background checks were performed only after placement, lacked completion dates or had no criminal information documented in the case file.<\/p>\n
The majority of emergency placements lacked verification that safety assessments were completed before children were placed with extended relatives. The report cited missing California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, or CLETS, criminal record documentation, incomplete child abuse and neglect records reviews, and unclear determinations about whether caregivers qualified for criminal record exemptions.<\/p>\n
In 15 cases, there was no indication that CLETS background checks were done. In 20 placements, a review for prior substantiated referrals was completed only after the child was placed in the foster home. In six cases, a required inspection of the foster home was completed only after placement.<\/p>\n
Where records were sufficient to make a determination, reviewers found no children still placed with caregivers whose criminal offenses legally barred them from fostering.<\/p>\n
In a memo Thursday to staff, Department of Family and Children\u2019s Services Director Wendy Kinnear-Rausch said the agency will build on reforms implemented since last spring \u2014 including ensuring consultations when investigating abuse and neglect \u2014 but acknowledged the challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis report is clear: we have significant areas of improvement\u201d needed, she wrote. The agency must ensure that \u201cwhen children are not safe at home, they can access the safety and security of an appropriate placement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report does not mention the May death of 8-year-old Aurora Williams, who wasn\u2019t in foster care but whose household was the subject of eight abuse and neglect referrals before she died. Only last week did county Medical Examiner Michelle Jorden release her report finding that \u201cmedical neglect\u201d was a significant contributing factor when Aurora died of a severe asthma attack. Jorden marked the manner of death as homicide.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen tragedies happen, such as started with Baby Phoenix, and they keep happening, and after three years you have just as many deficiencies, something\u2019s terribly wrong in resources and management,\u201d said Dr. Jeoffry Gordon, a member of the state-mandated citizens review panel that evaluates child fatality cases. \u201cIt borders on the scandalous.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement Thursday, County Executive James Williams called the safety and well-being of children \u201cparamount\u201d and said the county is committed to implementing the state\u2019s list of recommendations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are taking a systematic look at every aspect of DFCS\u2019s work to ensure all policies and procedures are rigorously followed in every case,\u201d Williams said. The county already established a new compliance office, he said, that will provide \u201congoing, thorough case reviews and help ensure consistent compliance and documentation become standard operating procedure as we take every step we can to keep kids safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
The review examined 55 foster care cases, 60 emergency placements and 13 resource family approvals from April 2025 to May 2026. Its findings highlight the need for the state\u2019s \u201ccontinued intervention and monitoring,\u201d the report said, \u201cto keep children safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nineteen cases lacked consistent documentation of safety assessments, \u201coften due to vague notes\u201d and an absence of documented private discussions with youth. Safety concerns were identified in 20 cases, the report found, most commonly involving caregiver neglect, unsafe unauthorized individuals in the home, youth behavioral crises and unsupervised parent contact.<\/p>\n
Steve Baron, a member of the county\u2019s Child Abuse Prevention Council, called the report\u2019s findings \u201cdisturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe deficiencies and noncompliance with legal requirements have probably been occurring for many many years, but have only been identified and revealed because children have died,\u201d said Baron, who emphasized he was speaking on his own behalf. \u201cThe continued assistance of the state is mandatory in ensuring that corrective action, some of which has occurred, continues to occur.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report made several recommendations that focus on \u201cboth immediate safety and process improvements.\u201d They must be underway by Nov 13 and include expanding the existing state-imposed corrective action plan to ensure state laws are properly followed, engaging in a \u201ccomprehensive mapping process\u201d of the emergency placement process and strengthening and clarifying county policies on assessing youth safety, including documenting prior abuse and neglect allegations against prospective foster parents.<\/p>\n
It did not assign responsibility for the failures to specific county leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody expects you to be perfect, but this enumeration of deficiencies speaks to me that the leadership and direction and concern for the most needy children is still deficient in the county,\u201d Gordon said, and the state \u201cdoes not seem to have the oomph to directly call that out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to look higher up the chain of command into the responsible parties that have not provided the resources, training, direction, or enthusiasm to protect the county\u2019s children.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santa Clara County\u2019s child welfare agency placed vulnerable children in foster homes before completing required safety checks and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,7,733,114998,138,2333,1533,181,100,182,385,88,90,89,198,200],"class_list":["post-467505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-child-abuse","tag-child-fentanyl-deaths","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-editors-picks","tag-keywee","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-pm-report","tag-regional","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-south-bay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467505","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=467505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}