LA County’s legal costs jump, fueled by settlements and fees

Los Angeles County’s legal bills ticked upward last fiscal year, jumping from $148.5 million to $151.9 million, fueled by an increase in the amount paid out to settle lawsuits. Costs and fees to outside law firms working on the county’s litigation helped drive up the number, officials said on Tuesday, Feb. 23. All told, attorneys fees and costs totaled $64.3 million, while the county paid out $87.6 million in judgments and settlements, according to County Counsel Rodrigo A. Castrol-Silva’s repor...
Tags: News, White House, Sport, Soccer, Parks and Recreation, States, Disneyland, Garcia, Los Angeles County, LA County, Public Works, Palmdale, Boyle Heights, Disney Vacation Club, Armando Garcia, Child and Family Services

How to Become a Foster Parent

If finding enough adults who were willing and able to care for the more than 400,000 children in foster care in the U.S. was a struggle before the pandemic hit, it has gotten unsurprisingly and epically harder since life as we knew it shut down.Read more...
Tags: Childhood, Family, Articles, Social Issues, Adoption, Child protection, Lifehacks, Foster Care, Social work, Child Protective Services, Child Welfare, Child and Family Services, Social programs, Respite Care, Business_finance

Montana official: 8 Family Services’ children died this year

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A Montana official says the deaths of eight children who were involved with Child and Family Services have been reported to the state this year. Lee Newspapers reports (http://bit.ly/2feysW2 ) that Shannon McDonald, who oversees the Child and Family Services division, told an interim legislative committee Monday about the number of […]
Tags: News, Montana, HELENA Mont AP, Family Services, Nation & World, Child and Family Services, Lee Newspapers, Shannon McDonald

Texas House OKs Letting Adoption Groups Deny Non-Christian, Gay, Unmarried Applicants

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Many state-funded Texas adoption and foster care agencies routinely deny non-Christian, gay, and unmarried applicants on religious grounds — and legislation that got initial approval in the state House on Tuesday is designed to protect them from potential lawsuits from doing so. The private organizations, which are paid by the state to place foster children with adoptive families, want to continue the practice and are seeking legal protections through Texas’ “Freedom to Serv...
Tags: Texas, News, Senate, Austin, Gop, South Dakota, House, Dallas, Christian, Republican, Frank, Cooper, Wichita, Robertson, Buckner, Daniels

Helicopter vs. Free Range: Dear Society, I’m on to you

It seems like a war has been waging for awhile, and for the longest time, I thought it was a war between helicopter parents and free range parents. It’s not. There’s another group involved that is pulling the punches and placing blame on each of our shoulders. And we fall for it every time. And we turn on each other again and again. And the war wages on. And the third group sits back, almost gleefully watching us tear each other apart, completely void of blame and hiding in anonymity. And just...
Tags: Parenting, Society, Blogging, Don, Winnipeg, Child Protective Services, Child and Family Services

Administrator of Child and Family Services leaving agency

The administrator of the Division of Child and Family Services has announced she is leaving the agency to return to practicing law. The division - part of the Department of Public Health and Human Services - has been under fire by some families and mental health counselors over complaints that it was not doing enough to protect children, that some children were being removed from homes unnecessarily and that caseworkers were bullying family members.
Tags: Department of Public Health and Human Services, Child and Family Services, Division of Child and Family Services