February 25, 2013: Philip Browning has been on the job at the Los Angeles Dept. of Children and Family Services, and, according to a story by Garrett Therolf in today's Los Angeles Times, he's disappointed "in the slow progress to improve the agency's 6,800 empoloyees who oeprate in a byzantine bureaucracy that investigates 160,000 annual child abuse complaints and oversees more than 19,000 foster children.
..."I'd give myself a C, if not lower. I have not been able to perform the way I hoped," he said in his Alabama drawl following a fresh wave of miserable news.
In recent weeks, Browning has been forced to answer questions about two young children who were allegedly tortured by a Palmdale woman who adopted them from foster care and later bound their hands behind their backs with zip ties and beat them with electrical cords and a hammer, authorities said.
Browning acknowledged his social workers approved the adoption following shoddy casework.
Then came the leak to The Times of an internal county report that offered a top-to-bottom indictment of the department's stifling policies and inept workforce.
The situation, investigators said, was akin to "the blind leading the blind." In the overwhelming majority of child fatality cases reviewed, they said the department's failures significantly contributed to the deaths.
The poor casework involving the Palmdale children and the problems described in the internal report both occurred when the department was under the leadership of former director Trish Ploehn and the county's chief executive, William T Fujioka....
To help solve one of the department's central problems — poor child abuse investigations — [Browning] is promising to win pay increases for his most skilled employees, as well as the best technology and management support.
"I'd like those workers to be the Marines of the department — the best and the brightest," he said.
The orders for the workers have also changed as the department stresses child safety and eases its emphasis on keeping children with their families. Over the past year, the number of foster children has grown by 800, to 19,100...
Browning pursues his politically perilous agenda under conditions that might be more difficult than his predecessors'. Following the Board of Supervisors determination that Fujioka had poorly managed the department, he was formally relieved of those duties. The department was ordered to report directly to the county's five elected leaders...
"This is a Tuesday to Tuesday job," he said in reference to the board's weekly meeting. "That's the nature of people in this position. They don't last very long."....
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