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Fresno County social worker Lorraine Ramirez (left) and Fresno County administrator Jean Rousseau on the housing of foster parents in a child protection services office in downtown Fresno, California, 2021 SEIU Local 521 in a bottle of water on Thursday, October 14, 2014. (Fresnoby via Craig Kohlruss / AP)
Fresno, CA (AP) — County executives in central California make immediate changes after news reports reveal that vulnerable children removed from their families live in dire conditions inside office buildings. I promised — sleep at a conference table, eat fast food, and a bottle of water until social workers can find a home for them.
Fresno County administrator Jean-Jacques apologized on Thursday to children and workers overseeing them who were forced to stay in office buildings, the main hub of Fresno County’s child protection services, Fresnoby said on Friday. reported. The press first reported on the situation on Wednesday.
“When I looked at the office and saw the mat being used as a bed, I said,’This is unacceptable.’ I should have known earlier and I’ll fix it soon, “Rousseau said.
Social workers told Bee that the county’s child welfare system was overwhelmed by staff shortages and lacked housing for children removed from their homes for their own safety. As a result, some children stay in child protection services offices until foster parents are found.
Fresnoby described children sleeping on conference tables and floor yoga mats in unlit rooms. They shared a single bathroom, couldn’t take a shower, and couldn’t use a water bottle to relieve themselves, the press reported.
Lorraine Ramirez, a veteran social worker at the Fresno County Social Welfare Department’s child welfare agency, told Bee that children would stay in the building for hours or weeks. She said that there are days when there are no children in the building and there are days when there are more than a dozen. They have different ages and medical needs.
“The state in which the children are staying is intolerable, which is inhumane,” Ramirez said.
Rousseau toured the office on Wednesday and said Thursday that staff were dispatched to buy cribs and inflatable mattresses.
From this weekend, he said the children will be housed in another building on the campus of the former medical center until they can be housed in a new location that should be completed in a month.
So far, Rousseau said it “violates the law” because it is not licensed by the state to accommodate children on the campus of the former medical center.
“But we have no choice. We have no place to take these young people,” he said.
Children in California are sleeping on the floor of a building | WGN Radio 720
Source link Children in California are sleeping on the floor of a building | WGN Radio 720
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