{"id":468731,"date":"2026-09-19T05:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T05:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/468731\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T05:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T05:16:12","slug":"santa-clara-county-placed-children-in-foster-care-without-safety-checks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/468731\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Clara County Placed Children in Foster Care Without Safety Checks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The state investigation follows the death of 2-year-old Jaxon Juarez, placed with a guardian who had a prior child-endangerment conviction.\n<\/p>\n

Sep 18, 2026<\/p>\n

Updated 5:06 pm PT<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Santa Clara County Government Center in San Jos\u00e9 on June 10, 2023. \u00a0(JHVE Photo\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Santa Clara County\u2019s<\/a> child welfare agency failed to follow common safety checks before placing vulnerable children in foster homes, according to a state investigation released this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Investigators with the California Department of Social Services found \u201csignificant systemic gaps in documentation and timeliness across required emergency placement procedures,\u201d the report states, including that only 10% of emergency placements complied with state law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another finding was that about half of background checks on foster parents were conducted only after children were placed in their care. State officials also found that workers often didn\u2019t include evidence of criminal records when checking potential foster parents and extended family members.<\/p>\n

\"\"District Attorney Jeff Rosen speaks on April 20, 2026, outside the Santa Clara County Juvenile Court in San Jos\u00e9 where prosecutors announced charges against a San Jos\u00e9 teen accused of killing his 2-year-old foster brother, Jaxon Juarez.\u00a0(Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s Department of Family and Children\u2019s Services was already facing scrutiny \u2014 a 3-month-old under the department\u2019s care had died of a fentanyl overdose in 2023 \u2014 when 2-year-old Jaxon Juarez<\/a> died in the home of a foster parent in April. Juarez\u2019s foster mother was previously convicted of felony child endangerment.<\/p>\n

That summer, county officials announced it was firing four social workers<\/a> related to the case after three had already resigned.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Jaxon\u2019s death, county officials requested that the state investigate the handling of that case. State investigators elected to review 55 foster care cases, 60 emergency placements and 13 resource-family approvals from April 2025 through May 2026.<\/p>\n

They found safety concerns in 20 cases. Those included caregiver neglect, unsafe unauthorized people living in the home, children with behavioral crises and unsupervised contact with a parent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state investigation follows the death of 2-year-old Jaxon Juarez, placed with a guardian who had a prior…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-468731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468731","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=468731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}