On Feb. 3, Judith Sandalow, the executive director of the Children's Law Center, testified before the D.C. Council on the state of city's child-welfare agency. Her verdict [PDF] was brutal:
"The District's child abuse and neglect system requires dramatic reform at all stages. On the front end, the government does not adequately prevent abuse and neglect. [...]

Last week, the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless reported that a D.C. Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) social worker had attempted to force a homeless mother to make a brutal choice: Either get on a bus out of town or risk having your three children put in fostercare. City Desk followed up on [...]

In its report on health and human services, Mayor Vince Gray's transition team outline key areas that need improvement with various District agencies. The report [PDF], submitted by Maria Gomez and Peter Edelman, suggests the District's Child and Family Services Agency needs a lot of work.
Among the five issues highlighted, the team noted the agency [...]

This past Saturday, we questioned D.C. Child and Family Services Agency Director Roque Gerald's weird WaPo editorial in which he claimed residential treatment placements hit an "historic low of 44 in 2010."
Today we come to you with more proof that Gerald is wrong.

In today's WaPo, Child and Family Services Agency Director Roque Gerald finally responds at length to a series of critical pieces about his agency.  Some of the recent pieces argued that the agency doesn't respond adequately when calls are made to its hotline, that residential treatment centers are overused, and with my own story on [...]

Among the dozens and dozens of District government e-mails related to Jumiya Crump's child-welfare case, chronicled in this week's cover story, only one city official seemed to really get it. City lawyers and even Jumiya's own advocates were fixed on shipping the teenager out of state to a residential facility—a costly and dubious treatment practice. [...]

This security footage was shot at KidsPeace Mesabi Academy in 2007. I uncovered it as part of my research on the District's costly use of residential treatment centers. The restraints that you see on this video caused the youth's arm to break. Minnesota officials investigated the incident and cleared the orderlies, arguing that the restrain [...]

Updated: 5 p.m.
The proposed budget cuts to D.C.'s Child and Family Services Agency do not just include the laying off of 54 employees and the cutting of the Rapid Housing Program. It became quite clear at yesterday's D.C. Council hearing that more cuts have been proposed to the troubled agency.
Judith Sandalow, executive director of the [...]

Last Friday, we report that Mayor Adrian Fenty's proposed budget called for 54 Child and Family Services Agency employees to be laid off. Roque Gerald, the agency's director, announced that the cuts would be coming during a recent staff meeting. But there's more proposed cuts on the table. Fenty has proposed cutting the agency's $1.19 [...]

Update: 6 p.m.
D.C. Child and Family Services Agency Director Roque Gerald announced in a staff meeting last week that 54 agency employees will soon be getting pink slips. Mayor Adrian Fenty had stipulated in his proposed budget that the cuts be made.
One CFSA employee confirms the cuts to City Desk: "He did bring it up [...]

As chair of the Committee on Human Services, Councilmember Tommy Wells presides over one of the toughest tasks facing any local politician: conducting oversight of the Child and Family Services Agency. The last few years have not been kind to the city's social workers. Banita Jacks could have served as a catalyst for sweeping reforms. [...]

This morning in U.S. District Court, Judge Thomas F. Hogan took up the on-going legal battle over the District's Child and Family Services Agency. At issue was whether or not the agency could be held in contempt. Hogan devoted much of his consternation on the how the District went about picking Dr. Roque Gerald (pictured) [...]

Roque Gerald has served as the acting director of the Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for less than a year. In that short time, however, he has learned an important lesson about management. Say nice things about your underlings, that is.
In a youth conference today at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Gerald [...]

In July, Children's Rights, the New York-based group behind a long-standing lawsuit against the District over its handling of children filed a contempt motion in U.S. District Court over the pre-and-post-Banita Jacks troubles at CFSA.  The court battle over CFSA continues to be hot.
Last fall, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan issued an order [...]

Yesterday, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced his nomination of Roque Gerald to become the permanent director of Child and Family Services at a press conference. Gerald had served as the agency's interim director since this past July. Fenty called his nomination a "shot in the arm" and touted Gerald as an old-hand within the troubled agency [...]