According to a recent Los Angeles County report, nearly 10,000 children in the county's foster care system are receiving "reunification services" designed to help repair their families and return them to their parents — and visitation is a core, legally required component.
"It's one of the most essential services we can provide," said Diane Iglesias, senior deputy director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. Visits help keep children connected with their families, she said, and provide opportunities to repair damage their relationships have suffered.
DCFS calculated social workers are spending 6 million hours a year scheduling and facilitating visits between foster children and their caretakers, doing things like finding an open room in one of the county's visitation facilities, coordinating everyone who's supposed to attend visitations, and dealing with cancellations.
Trying to place kids with foster families near their parents is a potential solution, Nichols said. DCFS is planning to do targeted recruitments in areas where there aren't enough foster families to meet the need, he said. The department is also looking to get input from technology companies that manage complex systems with multiple venues, cancellations and moving parts for ideas on how to improve the system, Nichols said.
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