What is child neglect? LA County is training educators to see beyond poverty

Los Angeles County agencies are beginning to train educators and other mandated reporters about a change in state law that has narrowed the definition of “general neglect.”

Mandated reporters are people who work closely with children and are required by state law to report suspected child abuse or neglect. There are 49 categories of people in California, including teachers, doctors and nurses.

The bill, which went into effect last year, excludes poverty alone as a reason to report child welfare cases under “general neglect.”

What is ‘neglect’?

Brandon Nichols, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, says the breadth of “general neglect” has led to a wide range of calls, like a child not having enough food.

“Is the kid hungry because the parent is on drugs and not functioning well enough … to go and get food and give the kid food. Or is the kid hungry because the parent just doesn't have the money?” he said. “We're trying to get more precise in those categories and look at the driver.”

In cases where it’s the latter, and a child is in a safe and loving family, the department wants the family to be referred to resources.

“There's better ways to handle situations where families are struggling, [where] families don't have access to economic supports,” he said.

The county now has a Mandated Supporting Initiative where the aim includes building out a system to instead connect families who need economic resources.

New 'general neglect' definition

• Mandated reporters have to report suspected or observed child abuse or neglect cases, including sexual abuse, physical abuse, unlawful corporal punishment and neglect.
  
• Previously, “general neglect” applied to parents and caretakers who weren't providing "adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision.”
  
• A law that went into effect in 2023 changed that definition to only include situations where a child is "at substantial risk of suffering serious physical harm or illness," and excludes a 'parent’s economic disadvantage.'"

What makes for a case of neglect?

The majority of calls that come through the county’s Child Protection Hotline end up not resulting in a child welfare case, Nichols said. He added that, on average, the county receives over 200,000 calls a year, but only about 7-9% of those result in the agency opening a case.

“I worry that when we're looking at those [unsubstantiated] cases, we're missing cases where kids really are in danger and really need our intervention,” he said.

Calls also have disproportionately involved children of color, particularly Black children. While Black residents make up less than 8% of L.A. County’s population, Black children made up 19% of all calls made to the hotline in 2022, according to the agency.

A 2020 analysis found 1 in 3 Black children in the county had a hotline call made on them before they turned 5 years old, the agency said.

And calls didn’t necessarily lead to help.

Betty Zamorano-Pedregon, early care and education director at the Child Care Resource Center, says that in the past, a child without access to food or clothes — like a coat — would get reported to child protection.

“What would they get? They would get a put in the system,” she said. “They would get a social worker, but they would never get the coat that they really need.”

How are people being trained on the new law?

Zamorano-Pedregon says her agency has been training early educators at four of its Head Start sites as part of a pilot. The aim is to collect data and evaluate calls and referrals, and to eventually provide training to all of its sites, as well as family childcare providers.

Debra Duardo, superintendent of schools for Los Angeles County, said the Los Angeles County Office of Education is getting ready to train all of its 80 school districts. It started a pilot training program in Inglewood last year.

“With the change of the law, it made it very clear that poverty is not a crime,” she said. The shift from mandatory reporting to supporting families also helps families from becoming unnecessarily involved in the child welfare system, she said.

“When you have a social worker come knock on a door and say, ‘I'm here to investigate child abuse,’ what that does to the family — the mistrust that that puts on a family when there's no abuse,” she said. What that can do, she says, is lead them to not trust the schools and the people that are supposed to support their children and families.

Nichols, with DCFS, said the rollout of the initiative and “transforming the system” is “slow” on purpose, and they’re not by any means restricting the Child Protection Hotline.

“We don't want to make a misstep or rush in a way that inadvertently puts children at risk ,” he said. “Anybody, anywhere that has concerns about the safety of the child, they should call our hotline and we'll do what we do to make sure kids are safe. That's the number one thing, and that is not going to change even throughout all of this.”