Social workers began meeting weekly as a part of three high level committees that the Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office is convening with frontline workers, department leadership and top county management in order to reform child welfare in LA County.
Dear Colleagues:
This week we had our first meeting with the Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office, leadership from the Department of Children and Family Services and frontline social workers about three new committees designed to improve the department.
We are writing to you because we are encouraged by this process. We believe it includes the right mix of stake holders and will help us achieve our goal to reform DCFS to better the experience for the children and families we serve and workers.
Never before has the CEO’s office been involved. Antonia Jimenez, the new Deputy CEO, committed personally to moving the process forward.
Social workers are part of three project teams – Policy, Training, and Over 60s & ER Redesign.
We know it’s difficult reading about social work in the newspaper, but in our view the best reaction is to use the attention to help affect change.
There are problems in our department that make delivering the highest quality social work possible challenging at times. We hope you will join with us in fixing them. Please email us directly with any comments, thoughts or questions.
Sincerely,
Larry Golan, SCSW
Mark White, CSW
Mellonie Freeman, CSW
Randy Gracia, CSW
Rachel Ruiz, retired SCSW
Mike Ross, SCSW
Adrian Gonzalez, SCSW
Tony Bravo, SCSW
Blanca Gomez, CSW
Aruna Patel, CSW
Michael Aguilera, CSW
Dina Petruzzi-Sagredo, SCSW
POLICY
Co-leads: Larry Golan (FM/R SCSW, Glendora) and Maryam Fatemi (Deputy Director, Service Bureau 3)
Goal:
Inventory, evaluate and streamline department policies.
TRAINING
Co-leads: Blanca Gomez (CSW III, Belvedere) and Lisa Parrish (Deputy Director, Bureau of Strategic Management)
Goal:
Redesign and develop new and needed trainings for social workers at every level.
OVER 60S AND ER REDESIGN
Co-leads: Mike Ross (FM/R SCSW, El Monte) and Mark Miller (Director, Training Section)
Goal:
Develop standard business process for responding to emergency referrals (both under and over 60 days): include intake referrals, workload – streamline, eliminate, etc – and staffing, resources, etc.