LOS ANGELES – LA County social workers, who are members of SEIU Local 721, testified Friday, August 8 at an Assembly Select Committee on Foster Care hearing convened by Speaker Karen Bass and Assemblymember Jim Beall, Jr.
Social workers spoke at length about successful programs that preserve and reunify families by both involving community advocates instead of taking children into custody and encourage decision making by all family members in developing plans for children.

Tony Bravo, a supervising children’s social worker in Los Angeles, then told the panel that successes should be recognized, funded properly and expanded.

“We are passionate and committed to improving the lives of vulnerable young people, but we are in a constant battle to deliver because of inadequate support, lack of human resources and inordinately high caseloads that are twice the national standard,” said Tony Bravo, a supervising children’s social worker in Los Angeles.

“Today we are gripping the bull by the horns and acting proactively rather than waiting for another tragedy. We have successful programs that protect vulnerable children and we need to expand them,” Bravo said.

The hearing was the second in California sponsored by the Assembly Select Committee on Foster Care designed to call attention to successful, but limited programs, in practice in California.

Currently, there are 74,000 children who live away from their families and communities because of abuse or neglect at home. Fifty percent of the children who enter foster care are younger than age 5. Many of these children experience further trauma moving from foster home to foster home and from school to school.

While nearly 50 percent of children in foster care reunify with their families, many return to foster care because of the lack of an available, long-term stable funding stream to provide supportive services. One in four of the youths can no longer remain in the system is incarcerated within two years of leaving foster care, one in five becomes homeless at some time after age 18, only 46 percent complete high school, a mere 3 percent earn a college degree, and just 51 percent of aged out foster care youths have a job at age 21.

SEIU 721 represents more than 5,000 thousand social workers in LA County, representing the rights of thousands of children and families in Los Angeles Social Workers, SEIU Local 721 members