Major Crisis In Family And Children’s Services

What started out during public expression at last Tuesday’s Board meeting as a seemingly innocuous staff request to delay a planned organizational restructuring, has turned out to be a major crisis in Mendocino County’s Family & Children’s Services (FCS), a division of Mendo’s Social Services Department currently being run by the recently hired DeNeese Parker who has very little background in what used to be known as Child Protection Services.

A senior Social Worker in FCS named John Weston read the petition from FCS staffers entitled, “Pause the Proposed Family & Children’s Services Restructuring”:

“We, the undersigned employees of Family & Children’s Services, respectfully request that Social Services management pause the implementation of the proposed staffing changes.

We are deeply concerned that these significant shifts, particularly the reassignment of experienced staff away from areas in which they excel, are being pursued without adequate staff input. Such actions risk harming clients and further destabilizing the department.

Key concerns raised by staff include:

• Client Safety: Staff who have worked with families for years have expressed that their clients’ needs will not be met under the proposed changes, potentially placing children and families at risk.

For example, requiring investigators to carry ongoing cases undermines their important role and creates conflicts of interest. This could result in important information being omitted in detention summaries or key details being overlooked, ultimately causing families and children to “fall through the cracks” without the benefit of fresh oversight.

• Past Issues: The department has previously faced legal and organizational challenges when similar changes were attempted under inexperienced management. Staff have repeatedly shared that the Fort Bragg office piloted this model within the past decade and found it did not serve the best interests of clients or the department. Ignoring these lessons risks repeating past mistakes.
• Data Integrity: Staff report that the data used to justify the changes was selectively presented, leading to unrealistic goals and diminished trust in management. Issues such as scheduling conflicts, delays in data entry, and overtime hours being categorized as on-call rather than regular shift work have distorted the accuracy of this data.
• Morale: Staff morale has already declined as a result of the proposed changes, compounded by the use of disrespectful language toward employees. Out of 34 social workers, more than 10 have left the department within the past year, and turnover is expected to rise if these changes move forward.

We believe there is still time to meet state guidelines in a thoughtful and collaborative manner. A more deliberate approach would allow management and staff to work together to identify strategies that truly strengthen our department and protect the families we serve.

Therefore, we respectfully propose that management:

1. Delay implementation of the proposed staffing changes, :
2. Renew the social worker staff waiver, and,
3. Collaborate with current staff to create an equitable plan that draws on the knowledge and experience of frontline staff and staff leaders.

Failure to engage with staff on these matters will not only weaken the Department’s ability to serve vulnerable families, but may also expose management to further legal, contractual, and labor relations consequences.

We urge management to act responsibly by respecting staff expertise, upholding client safety, and working with us to develop a sustainable path forward.”

The petition was signed by 36 FCS staff members.

Response from Board Chair John Haschak: “Thank you.” No referral to staff. No request for response from the CEO. No ad hoc committee. Again: This was a very reasonable request from almost EVERY staffer in Family and Children’s Services about a subject that has been the target of multiple Grand Jury reports.

The Grand Jury has criticized the County several times in recent years over chronic staffing problems in FCS with no visible improvement. Now it appears that the County has chosen to “reorganize” FCS to make it look fully staffed by reassigning senior FCS workers into inappropriate positions and counting positions as full while at the same time making no attempt to retain qualified staff.

The problem has become worse in recent months as problematic individuals have been put in key management positions in FCS creating problems for staff and the children and families they serve.

In attempt to get County management to pay attention to the problem and correct the management deficiencies in FCS someone in FCS prepared the well-written and researched Grand Jury complaint below which has now become public. Instead of dealing with these problems, Social Services management and Executive Office staff are now engaged in trying to figure out who wrote the complaint so they can be singled out for retaliation.

But the complaint, coming as it does on the heels of the Grand Jury’s own complaints about previous FCS staffing problems, is likely to be followed by not only another critical Grand Jury report, but continuing and worsening staff problems.

The Supervisors must do more than their usual comatose “thank you” in response or vulnerable children will be harmed and lawsuits will follow.

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Executive Summary

Mendocino County Family & Children’s Services (FCS) is facing a crisis of leadership, ethics, and practice that directly endangers the safety of children and the stability of the workforce. In order to avoid signing a waiver acknowledging the County’s failure to meet state staffing requirements, upper management is forcibly reassigning the few master’s-level social workers to Emergency Response (ER), regardless of whether ER is their area of expertise or professional strength. This maneuver is not designed to strengthen services or improve child safety. It is a numbers game, a manipulation of staffing optics to appear compliant while destabilizing every other unit in the Department.

These decisions are being made by new upper management including the [Social Services] Director, Deputy Director of Children’s Services, and a soon-to-be ER Manager, none of whom have child welfare backgrounds. The Deputy Director and incoming ER Manager have never conducted a child welfare investigation, carried a dependency case, or worked in the field of child welfare. Yet they are unilaterally imposing changes based on mandates and appearances of compliance, while excluding supervisors and disregarding the realities of frontline practice. This disconnect between leadership and practice creates conditions for catastrophic failure.

The cultural climate of leadership only deepens these risks. In a staff meeting with the Director, Deputy Director, and Manager present, a master’s-level social worker voiced concern that forced ER reassignments would drive more qualified staff to leave the Department. The Director’s response was dismissive: “All you need to do is give a two-week notice.” In that same meeting, a manager (no child welfare experience) openly stated she pursued a master’s degree so she would “no longer have to be anyone else’s bitch,” a remark that exemplifies the toxic leadership culture. Rather than valuing education and professional growth as tools to strengthen practice, education was reduced to a means of escaping accountability and belittling staff.

These actions directly violate the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics, which requires practitioners and institutions to prioritize client well-being, act with integrity. respect the dignity of all people, and ensure services are provided competently. Forcing social workers into roles outside of their professional competence disregards ethical standards and compromises the quality of care provided to children and families.

The consequences of such systemic failures are not hypothetical. The Gabriel Fernandez case in Los Angeles County stands as a tragic warning. Gabriel, an eight-year-old boy, was brutally murdered after multiple reports of abuse were mishandled by a child welfare system plagued with inexperienced workers, poor oversight, and decisions driven by bureaucratic compliance rather than child safety. Investigations into Gabriel’s death revealed that the absence of qualified leadership and effective supervision were central to the failure to protect him. Mendocino County is now recreating those same conditions: unqualified leadership, demoralized and destabilized staff, silenced supervisors, and practices driven by optics instead of safety.

The current trajectory of Mendocino County FCS undermines the professional judgment of social workers, erodes public trust, and most critically places children at greater risk of harm. Unless meaningful reform is undertaken to ensure qualified leadership, ethical staffing practices, and trauma-informed, child-centered decision-making, the Department will remain vulnerable to the same tragedies that have devastated other counties and communities.

Documented Concerns

1. Toxic Work Environment and Unaddressed Workplace Violence

Staff, including social workers (SW) and supervisors (SWS), have endured verbal threats, intimidation, and hostile behavior from a supervisor who remains employed. Documented incidents include:

• “I should choke you the fuck out” — while standing over a social worker, and yelling.
• “I should slap you in the face” — while raising a hand to strike.
• “Get the fuck out of my office.”
• Charging at staff in a threatening manner.
• Standing up at a table during a Child Family Team meeting, leaned over the table, slammed her hands down onto the table and yelled at the facilitator, “Why don’t you facilitate this meeting?” (Parents, attorney service providers and staff were all present.)
• During a zoom staffing meeting with staff including the acting Deputy Director, Managers, Supervisors and social workers, a supervisor yelled at the meeting facilitator to get off the meeting and do their job, when the facilitator’s primary role was to facilitate the meeting to develop a plan.
• A manager telling staff she got her master’s degree so she did not have to be anyone’s bitch.

Despite multiple reports to HR, upper management, and the Executive Office, no investigation or disciplinary action has occurred. Victims remain exposed to ongoing intimidation, creating a pervasive culture of fear and normalizing violence in the workplace.

2. Favoritism and Conflicts of Interest

Leadership has repeatedly demonstrated favoritism that undermines accountability and fairness. Examples include:

• Altering job qualifications to allow the promotion of an unqualified individual to Senior Program Manager.
• The Deputy Director spends extensive personal time with certain supervisors, including private lunches, after-hours meetings, and closed-door sessions.
• Deputy Director does not speak with the leadership team, rather making decisions with a manager with no child welfare back ground and a supervisor who is out of compliance with all her cases/referrals.

This pattern creates a culture where rules and standards only apply selectively, rewarding disruptive or unsafe behavior if the individual has the Deputy Director’s protection. This is not trauma-informed practice and contributes significantly to the toxic environment.

3. Child Safety Compromised by Staffing Practices

Due to chronic understaffing, case-carrying social workers are barred from conducting placement visits with their assigned children. Instead, unfamiliar staff conduct these visits without adequate knowledge of the child’s history or needs.

This practice:

• Destroys continuity of care, as children cannot rely on trusted relationships.
• Causes retraumatization, as children are forced to repeat their stories to strangers.
• Violates trauma-informed principles and undermines professional standards of child welfare practice.

1. Mismanagement of Emergency Response (ER) Leadership

Emergency Response (ER) is the County’s most critical child protection unit. Veteran ER leadership with decades of experience has been removed and replaced by a newly hired program manager who has no prior child welfare background. The individual has never conducted investigations, case management, or used 5040 child welfare tools such as Structured Decision Making (SAM), hotline assessments, safety and risk assessments, or family strengths and needs assessments. Moreover, this manager lacks basic knowledge of core ER functions.

The Deputy Director is adamant to meet state mandates NOW, rather than working on a solid plan. The department cannot meet the state mandates by January 2026; therefore, renewing the waiver will allow the department to work on a strong plan that can be implemented by the ending of the waiver in 2029.

However, the new Deputy Director would destabilize the department and run staff out to other counties rather than work with her leadership team with experience to develop a working plan.

This appointment destabilizes the strongest and most effective unit in the department. Under prior leadership. ER saw more than 50% reduction in open petitions (last 2 years), minimized referral backlogs, and strengthened voluntary case services to keep families safely together outside of court. Replacing experienced leadership with someone lacking both professional expertise and personal credibility jeopardizes these gains, places children at heightened risk, and diminishes staff trust in management decisions.

5. Lack of Transparency and Dishonesty in Leadership

Deputy Directors and managers routinely provide contradictory, misleading, or incomplete information to staff.

For example:

• A Deputy Director emailed a manager confirming the supervisor’s removal, then denied having made the statement when confronted, despite documented proof.
• Major staffing and disciplinary decisions are made in secrecy, excluding supervisors and managers directly impacted.
• Deputy Director privately meets with a supervisor and identifies their change in units; however, does not meet with the supervisor who is being moved out.

This dishonesty fosters confusion, distrust, and a lack of accountability at every level of DSS.

6. Tolerance of Abusive Supervisors

The supervisor with the documented history of threats and intimidation (outlined in Section 1) continues to hold authority and is now expected to be transferred to Emergency Response (ER), the County’s highest stakes unit.

Her violent, angry outbursts put staff and families at risk. She has never been reprimanded despite numerous complaints, signaling that abusive conduct is not only tolerated but rewarded. This further entrenches a toxic and unsafe work environment.

7. Disrespectful Leadership and Unlawful Directives

During a meeting with staff, a manager announced she had earned her master’s degree, so she no longer had to be “somebody’s bitch.” This derogatory comment left social workers feeling defeated, devalued, and unworthy. This same manager told staff she was going to be the “asshole” during a meeting with social workers, social worker supervisors, and managers and would not listen to social worker input, although the meeting was specifically for the social workers input.

Additionally, the Deputy Director has explicitly directed staff that they cannot report fraud under any circumstances, despite state and federal laws requiring such reporting. This instruction puts staff at risk of legal liability and undermines public accountability.

Further, social workers and supervisors have knowingly left youth in illegal respite placements, depleting both grant and County funds. In some cases, youth who went AWOL were not picked up or recovered, leaving them unsafe in the community.

8. Illegal Detentions, Policy Violations, and Questionable Relationships

On-call supervisors with master’s degrees have made illegal detentions, violation of rights and failed to complete placement paperwork, leaving children unsafe and resource parents exposed to liability. Policies that are mandatory for some are ignored by those with personal connections to management.

In addition, there are persistent concerns about the appearance of an inappropriate relationship between a supervisor and the Deputy Director. This supervisor is regularly observed :n the Deputy Director’s office after hours, during private lunches, and in closed-door meetings unrelated to her duties. After a recent high-level leadership meeting, the Deputy Director immediately went to this supervisor’s office for a private session, raising concerns about favoritism and conflicts of interest.

This conduct contributes to unsafe practices, favoritism. and the perception of compromised integrity within DSS leadership.

9. Waiver Manipulation and Misuse of Qualified Staff

In order to avoid signing a waiver acknowledging that Mendocino County Family Children’s Services does not meet state requirements for employing social workers with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, upper management is forcibly reassigning the few qualified staff to Emergency Response (ER) Currently, the County has only four master’s-level social workers across the entire system. one in Fort Bragg, one in Willits, and three in Ukiah. All of these individuals are being moved to ER regardless of whether ER is their area of expertise, professional strength, or interest.

During a staff meeting attended by the Director, Deputy Director, and a Program Manager (soon to be ER Manager), a master’s-level social worker explicitly warned that if these forced reassignments continued, the Department would lose more staff. The Director’s response was dismissive: “All you need to do is give a two-week notice.” This statement reflects not only indifference toward staff retention but also a failure to recognize the impact of staff turnover on community safety, child well-being, and continuity of care.

In the same meeting, while discussing education, a manager told staff she had earned her master’s degree. so she no longer had to be “anyone else’s bitch.” Such a derogatory and unprofessional comment exemplifies the toxic leadership culture. Rather than valuing education as a tool to improve child welfare practice and outcomes, it was weaponized to demean staff and assert power, further eroding morale and undermining respect for professional growth.

Compounding these issues, the County’s new upper management including the Director, the Deputy Director of Children’s Services, and the soon-to-be ER Manager have no child welfare experience. Neither the Deputy Director of Children’s Services nor the soon-to-be ER Manager have ever worked in the child welfare field, conducted investigations, or carried child dependency cases. Yet, these individuals are now making unilateral decisions about practice and policy for Mendocino County Family & Children’s Services. Their choices are based solely on mandates, surface-level recommendations. or appearances of compliance, without regard for past lessons learned, community context, or the realities of frontline practice.

Supervisors are systematically excluded from decision-making processes, leaving those with the most direct knowledge of child safety concerns silenced and disregarded. Leadership’s lack of understanding of what line staff do, and how difficult and complex the job is, leaves the Department dangerously exposed to repeating the same systemic failures that have plagued child welfare systems elsewhere.

This culture and decision-making style place social workers in direct conflict with the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics, which requires practitioners to prioritize client well-being, act with integrity, and practice within their area of competence. Forcing highly trained staff into positions that do not align with their expertise not only undermines their professional judgment but also violates the ethical mandate to ensure services are delivered competently and in the best interest of children and families. When leadership disregards these ethical standards, they endanger both the community and the integrity of the profession itself.

The dangers of this approach are not theoretical. The case of Gabriel Fernandez, an eight-year-old boy murdered in Los Angeles County, demonstrated the catastrophic consequences of having unqualified, unsupported, and poorly supervised staff in critical child protection roles. Investigations into his death revealed that systemic failures including inexperienced workers making life-and-death decisions without adequate oversight directly contributed to his murder. Mendocino County is now creating the same conditions: leadership without expertise, silenced supervisors, demoralized staff, and child welfare practices driven by optics rather than child safely.

This maneuver does nothing to improve child safety or strengthen the system. Instead, it destabilizes the workforce, strips other units of their most qualified staff, and puts children and families at risk. By prioritizing bureaucratic compliance over trauma-informed practice, professional ethics, and community safety, upper management is undermining staff retention, eroding trust, and creating the very conditions for avoidable tragedies.

Conclusion

The issues described throughout this complaint are not isolated lapses, but systemic failures that place children and families at heightened risk of harm while undermining the integrity of Mendocino County’s Family & Children’s Services. Chronic understaffing, favoritism, dishonesty, tolerance of abusive supervisors, and disregard for lawful procedures represent more than internal management problems they are ethical violations with life-altering consequences for children in our care.

Mendocino County Family & Children’s Services (FCS) is in crisis. Leadership decisions are placing management including the Director, Deputy Director of Children’s Services, and soon-to-be ER Manager have no child welfare experience, have never conducted investigations, and have never carried dependency cases. Yet they are making unilateral decisions that destabilize the workforce, disregard professional judgment, and prioritize bureaucratic optics over child safety. Supervisors, who hold critical front-line expertise are systematically excluded from decision-making.

As social workers. we are bound by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics, which obligates us to uphold values of service, integrity, competence, dignity, and social justice. We are entrusted to protect the most vulnerable members of our community, ensuring their safety while minimizing retraumatization. The practices currently tolerated within this department including repeated placement disruptions. illegal detentions without proper documentation, and directives not to report welfare fraud directly conflict with these ethical obligations. They cause harm not only to the children and families we serve, but also to staff who are ethically bound to act in their best interest.

Furthermore, the Mendocino County Health & Human Services Agency’s mission statement commits the Department to “protecting vulnerable populations, strengthening families, promoting safety, and improving the health and well-being of the community.” Yet, the actions of current leadership stand in stark contradiction to this mission. By destabilizing emergency response leadership, discouraging lawful reporting, and tolerating abusive management practices, the County is failing to live up to its own stated values. Instead of strengthening families and supporting children, these practices deepen trauma, foster mistrust, and jeopardize community safety.

The consequences of this systemic failure are not theoretical. The Gabriel Fernandez case illustrates the catastrophic outcome when unqualified leadership and poor supervision endanger children. Mendocino County is now recreating these conditions: inexperienced leadership, demoralized staff, silenced supervisors, and decisions driven by appearances rather than child safety.

The consequences are clear:

• For children, the absence of trauma-informed practice and continuity of care results in retraumatization, instability, and increased long-term risk.
• For families, failure to provide lawful, ethical, and transparent services erodes confidence in the child welfare system, making reunification efforts harder and often impossible.
• For staff, being forced to operate in an unethical, unsafe, and hostile environment creates moral injury and drives out experienced workers who are essential to protecting children.

Mendocino County has both a moral and legal duty to act. The current practices not only violate professional ethics and the County’s mission but also expose the Department to potential liability under state and federal child welfare laws. It is imperative that the Board of Supervisors hold Management accountable, demand transparency, and require corrective action that restores integrity, safety, and trust to Family & Children’s Services.

Impact:

• Children: Increased trauma, instability, and tong-term risk.
• Families: Reduced confidence in the child welfare system and impaired reunification.
• Staff: Moral injury, unsafe work conditions, and loss of experienced social workers.

Recommendations: 1. Leadership Accountability: Require qualified child welfare experience in Director, Deputy Director, and ER Manager roles; include supervisors in policy decision making.

2. Ethical Staffing: Prohibit forced reassignment outside areas of competence; align staffing with child safety and state requirements (experience should matter).
3. Culture & Retention: Address toxic leadership, implement trauma-informed supervision, and retain qualified staff.
4. Independent Oversight: Establish external ER review and require regular reporting on staffing, qualifications, and compliance.

At the heart of this complaint lies one undeniable truth: Children in Mendocino County are suffering avoidable harm because leadership has abandoned its ethical and legal responsibilities. Every day that these practices are permitted to continue, children experience additional trauma, and families fall further from stability. It is the duty of this body and of every leader entrusted with public service to intervene before further damage is done. Children in Mendocino County are suffering preventable harm due to systemic failures. Immediate intervention is required to restore ethical, competent, and child-centered practice.

Potential Witnesses: Upon request.