PHOENIX — A new 39-page report just released from the Arizona Auditor General uncovered a disturbing lack of accountability from the Department of Child Services in its capacity to monitor the state’s nearly 2,700 group and foster care facilities.
The report took a look at whether DCS investigated and resolved complaints against and monitored licensed facilities.
Key findings of the report
The agency did not perform ongoing monitoring of 35 group homes during a 16-month period.
The agency was slow to investigate complaints. According to the report the agency took 158 days, 171 days and 406 days to investigate three licensing complaints.
The agency did not take proper enforcement action on complaints that were deemed valid at six foster homes.
The report also revealed the state never investigated some allegations and that children were never interviewed in some investigations.
“The worst possible investment we can make is putting a child in a group home,” said Luis De la Cruz, Executive Director of the Arizona Friends of Foster Children Foundation.
De la Cruz said the organization fills in the gaps for foster children where the state lacks.
What people knew for years
He calls the report troubling, but not surprising.
“This report only underscores what I think has widely been understood for many years now,” he added.
For more than a year, the 12News I-Team has been pressing DCS officials for answers about accountability at group and foster home facilities.
In 2022, a teen was shot and killed by another teen at a Phoenix group home, where guns and drugs were found days before the shooting.
Police records also found that since 2017, officers were called to the block of the facility more than 1,000 times.
Workers of that facility told the I-Team that DCS ignored years of red flags and reports.
According to the auditor general’s report, the lack of accountability may have allowed some facilities to operate in risky or unhealthy environments.
“If we’re being realistic if we don’t put them in a group home... Where else do we put them?" questioned De la Cruz.
Uphill battle
De la Cruz said the department is fighting an uphill battle with a lack of resources, workers and funding.
He said without a new approach to the problem things will likely remain the same.
“We will continue to see these kinds of things happen, I suspect until we can address the real core issue,” he said.
The auditor general’s report also offered 12 recommendations that Department of Child Services Director David Lujan said that he will look to implement.
According to the report, the auditor general will follow in six months the progress of the recommendations.
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