What to Do When San Bernardino County Child Protective Sevices Are Called on You
A sometime San Bernardino County social worker fired for reporting a systemic flaw that allowed children to be repeatedly placed into a foster abode where sexual corruption was reported has been awarded $ii.5 one thousand thousand past a federal jury.
The verdict reached Thursday marks the final chapter in a circuitous whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2016 by Eric Bahra confronting the county and its Department of Children and Family Services.
The suit originally was dismissed in May 2018 by U.S. Commune Court Judge Jesus Bernal. However, that ruling after was overturned past the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bahra, a 39-year-old therapist at Loftier Desert Psychological Services in Victorville, said Friday the verdict is bittersweet.
"I feel a bully sense of relief for myself that I can finally close this chapter of my life, but I notwithstanding have a corking sense of sadness and worry for the children in San Bernardino County," he said in a argument. "It was made clear during trial the Children and Family Services in San Bernardino has made no changes in eight years in how they address this systemic problem of placing foster children in the homes of known abusers.
"My hope is that this verdict will shine a spotlight on this event and help to protect the foster children in San Bernardino County."
County officials declined to say whether they programme to entreatment the verdict. "The canton will review the decision and identify possible next steps," spokesman David Wert said.
Case began in 2013
Bahra'southward ordeal began in June 2013, when he was assigned to a joint investigation by CFS and the San Bernardino County Sheriff'due south Department concerning sexual corruption of children by a foster parent.
Two children disclosed that the foster father had sexually abused them and had taken naked photos of them, which he then placed in an album containing many photos of other nude children, the lawsuit says.
A Sheriff's Section detective asked Bahra to provide further data regarding other children who had been placed in the foster home in the past.
CFS produced a list showing social workers had placed 39 children in the home since 2001. Notwithstanding, Bahra became suspicious when he could find no prior complaints nearly the home.
"Mr. Bahra'southward instruction, grooming and experience led him to believe that finding no prior complaints was unusual in the circumstance of allegations of sexual abuse, peculiarly in this case, where ii children disclosed that they had been in the home for 3 one/ii years and had been sexually abused the entire time, and that they had seen the foster male parent'southward album containing nude photographs of many children," the lawsuit says. It was then Mr. Bahra discovered the canton'due south child welfare database."
Database revealing
On June 25, 2013, during a search of the kid welfare system'south database, Bahra discovered at least 19 separate instances in which social workers had placed children in the foster abode of a known abuser.
V onetime foster children who claimed to have been abused by their foster parents in the Loftier Desert home in question sued the county, settling their cases in May 2017 for $712,500. Under the settlement agreement, the former foster parents — Leonardo and Maria Rodriguez — were to pay the plaintiffs $35,000, the San Bernardino-based Children'southward Style Foster Family Agency was to pay $375,000 and the county was to pay the balance of $302,500.
Bahra found that the database lacked a system of cross-checking, allowing ane social worker to substantiate abuse by a foster parent and remove the child, while enabling another social worker to place a child in the home.
Attempt to discredit
A solar day after Bahra reported the database glitch to his supervisor, Kristine Burgamy, Bahra claims to take plant Burgamy and Nickola Hackett, deputy director of the CFS role in Victorville, at his desk-bound, rifling through paperwork.
"When his director and deputy director saw Mr. Bahra, they ordered Mr. Bahra to practise no further investigation on what he had found and ordered Mr. Bahra to turn over all of his investigative documents to them," the lawsuit states.
Fearing Bahra could further inform authorities that children were existence placed in foster homes with documented serial child molesters, Hacket and Burgamy ready out to discredit him, the conform says.
The pair leveled a dozen misconduct charges against Bahra. Amid the false allegations were that he had been discourteous to a supervisor, had scheduled a co-worker for an on-call assignment without her permission, and shared confidential statements from a four-year-old sexual corruption victim with not-relatives.
'Silenced with termination'
Bahra worked every bit a social services practitioner for the canton from November. 7, 2011, until his firing on Oct. vii, 2013, according to his attorney, Valerie Ross.
"Mr. Bahra complained about the clear and present and verified risk and danger to children the existing system posed, and he advocated for a systemwide repair and remediation of the organisation. For his advancement, he was silenced with termination," the lawsuit says.
Bahra filed the suit a month after a San Bernardino County grand jury issued a scathing written report on the canton's kid welfare organization, alleging it was rife with systemic failures, including shoddy documentation practices, a communication breakup between social workers and police enforcement that thwarts child abuse investigations, and a reluctance past social workers to remove children from abusive homes
In September 2016, the county responded to the grand jury'south findings, indicating it was on a "clear path" to resolving high social worker turnover and heavy caseloads.
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Source: https://www.sbsun.com/2021/07/16/jury-awards-2-5-million-to-san-bernardino-county-social-worker-whistleblower
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