CHILD SERVICES SCANDAL HEATS UP MOLINA: FIRE OR DISCIPLINE INEFFECTIVE SOCIAL WORKERS.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday demanded the firing or disciplining of social workers and their bosses after the death of a 2-year-old Canoga Park boy, in what is expected to be the first in a wave of firings in the nation's largest child-protective system.

The supervisors called for the action after learning that social workers visited young Ivan Merlos' home on Roscoe Boulevard six times, including once when he had a broken leg, but did not take him away from his mother. He died Oct. 1.

``People around this child called to say he was in harm's way,'' Supervisor Gloria Molina said. ``But every time the social workers looked, they said there was nothing to it until the day they went and found the boy in a hospital bed, totally deformed from the brutal beating.

``Those social workers and supervisors need to be brought in, and just like a cop, asked to turn in their badges. I'm angry because I'm supposed to be able to trust the system. This tells me that these people don't know what they are doing.''

The supervisors' demand for action came as the Board of Supervisors debated a set of reforms aimed at improving long-standing problems in the county Department of Children and Family Services.

The supervisors reached agreement on the major points of the reform plan but postponed the vote for a week to get more information on a proposal by philanthropist Eli Broad to build a residential academy to prepare foster children for college.

Claudia Merlos, 19, was arrested Sept. 30 on suspicion of attempted murder for allegedly punching her son in the stomach, police said. She didn't call paramedics to treat his critical injuries because she feared that authorities would take him away from her, police said.

After her roommate called authorities, the boy was rushed to West Hills Hospital in full cardiac arrest.

After her son's death the next day, Merlos - a dwarf who stands 3 feet tall - was charged with murder, assault on a child causing death and torture. She has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

The boy's injuries included massive internal bleeding. Detectives later determined that the child had both old and new unexplained external injuries.

``The case has many complex legal and medical issues,'' said Deputy Public Defender Jonathan Petrak, who is defending Merlos. ``Claudia and I are still discussing the evidence, but it appears to me that she was a responsible single parent who did her best to care for her young son.''

DCFS Director David Sanders, who took over the troubled department last March after the forced resignations of its previous four directors, said internal investigators are in the process of identifying a group of social workers and supervisors who historically have made poor decisions on when to remove children from their families.

``The issue is that there is a core of employees who have been in the department for many, many years that have not been doing a good job,'' Sanders said.

When he started last year, Sanders discovered that performance evaluations had not been conducted on more than half of his employees. In recent months, Sanders has embarked on a massive shake-up inside the department, transferring hundreds of workers promoted to office jobs by previous directors to the streets as social workers.

So far, he has reduced the number of cases social workers carry from 31 to 25 and expects to further reduce their caseloads, giving workers more time to ensure the safety of children.

``There is, unfortunately, more than this one situation where we have had poor performance on the part of our workers,'' Sanders said.

``The good workers know about these people. They have asked why the people who haven't done their jobs for years are kept on. Just last week, two or three people were fired for poor performance. It was extreme.''

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said Children's Services Inspector General Michael Watrobski's investigation into Ivan Merlos' death found that the boy had been reported to the DCFS on six occasions as a victim of possible abuse and neglect.

``The investigation into the death of Ivan included a complete review of the case file and several factors indicating that the quality of supervision by DCFS may have contributed to Ivan's death,'' Antonovich said.

Molina said she was outraged that the social workers and supervisors involved in overseeing the case had not been fired yet and could still be handling cases.

``These workers still work for us, probably doing the same dumb stuff they were doing that led to a child's death,'' Molina said.

Sanders said the investigation into the workers has been completed and that disciplinary recommendations have been made to him. He said the department will now go through the disciplinary process, which involves civil service hearings.

The supervisors directed Sanders to report back in two weeks on what discipline was carried out and what corrective-action plans were taken to prevent similar tragedies in the future.

In addition to social workers who leave children in dangerous homes, Sanders said he is concerned about the high rate of children abused and neglected in foster homes, which averages 6 percent to 7 percent of the children in the county's foster care system.

In the past 10 months, 271 perpetrators of abuse and neglect were foster parents, Sanders said.

The supervisors' comments Tuesday follow recent Daily News reports that found that as many as half of the 75,000 children in the Los Angeles County foster system and adoptive homes were needlessly placed in a system that is often more dangerous than their own homes. About 28,000 children actually live in foster homes in the county.

Child-welfare experts say some social workers leave children in dangerous homes while taking children from homes that could be made safe with the appropriate services.

The reforms the supervisors debated Tuesday include a proposal to help reverse these financial incentives that encourage the county and its contractors to profit off the plight of foster children.

It includes a request for a federal waiver to use $250 million of the $1.4 billion DCFS budget on services to help prevent the placement of children in foster care.

The package also includes goals to reduce the high rate of children mistreated in foster care to national standards, to reduce the percentage of children entering the system by 15 percent and to return 25 percent to 30 percent of the children in the system home quickly.

Staff Writer Michael Gougis contributed to this report.

Troy Anderson, [phone]

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com