Fresno County has a mess on its hands with its foster youth. Money cannot be an excuse

When children are placed under the care of Fresno County’s Social Services Department, the agency becomes the parent. The agency must protect and watch over these children until a permanent placement is found.

But, as we all recently learned, Fresno County failed to live up to its responsibility.

The Fresno Bee reported accounts from Fresno County social workers that children housed in a county office building were sleeping on tables and urinating in bottles. These vulnerable children were already traumatized by being removed from their families — to compound their fear and anxiety was inhumane.

Fresno County officials claim counties have yet to receive additional funds to address these challenges. That’s not correct.

The state knows that youth placement is a complicated issue. The former longstanding practice of sending children to group homes or out-of-state facilities was neither compassionate nor leading to positive results.

As chair of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee for Health and Human Services, I allocated $139.2 million for 2020-21 to assist counties serving foster youth who have complex needs.

State officials also recognize that foster caregivers — and, in turn, social workers — need more support. So we allocated an additional $5.4 million in the 2020-21 budget to help reduce social worker turnover.

And, for more than a year, the California Department of Social Services has had a strike team in place to provide counties requesting assistance with real-time and hands-on guidance, support, and technical help to find immediate and appropriate placements.

There’s also this, as pointed out by Lorraine Ramirez, a Fresno County social worker: Other counties are handling the children in their custody much more humanely than Fresno County.

During this past week, we’ve heard several Fresno County supervisors offer different explanations of what they knew and when they knew it — their comments were unsettling and lacked clarity or direction.

They and their county administrative officer talk a lot about accountability when it comes to state, city, and federal governments.

What about their accountability and responsibility for this mess? As temporary parents of these children, Fresno County must ensure these children are safe, sheltered, and secure. Anything less is unacceptable.