2024-108 Alameda County Department of Children and Family Services
Delayed Investigations and Support Services Risk the Health and Safety of Youth
Published: September 23, 2025
Audit Recommendations Disclosure
When an audit is completed and a report is issued, auditees must provide the State Auditor with information regarding their progress in implementing recommendations from our reports at three intervals from the release of the report: 60 days, six months, and one year. Additionally, Senate Bill 1452 (Chapter 452, Statutes of 2006), requires auditees who have not implemented recommendations after one year, to report to us and to the Legislature why they have not implemented them or to state when they intend to implement them. Below is a listing of each recommendation the State Auditor made in the report referenced and a link to the most recent response from the auditee addressing their progress in implementing the recommendation and the State Auditor’s assessment of auditee’s response based on our review of the supporting documentation.
Recommendations to Alameda County Department of Children and Family Services
Recommendation 1
To ensure that it timely initiates and completes investigations of all immediate and non‑immediate referrals, the department should, by January 2026:
- Ensure that all supervisors review and approve investigation reports in a timely manner to ensure that they agree with the disposition.
- Periodically review the status of all referrals to determine the number of days to initiate and complete investigations and work with staff to identify impediments to initiating and completing investigations within the required time.
- Develop a strategy to address all identified impediments to ensure that it reduces the number of days for initiating and completing all investigations to comply with required time frames.
Agency response status:
Pending
Recommendation 2
To ensure that it has sufficient staff to provide timely investigations of child abuse and neglect referrals and the timely provision of foster care services, the department should do the following by October 2026:
- Survey all staff to identify impediments to retention and recruitment of staff and develop an action plan to address the identified impediments.
- Hire more staff in the CWW I classification, up to 50 percent of the total child welfare workers in the department’s ER Unit, as CDSS allows.
- Make its shadowing process mandatory for new employees to reduce the time supervisors spend training new staff.
Agency response status:
Pending
Recommendation 3
To ensure that foster youth receive all necessary services within the prescribed or agreed‑upon time frames, the department should create and implement policies and processes that include the following by October 2026:
- Documenting the service referral dates for all services.
- Documenting all service provision, including dates when a service was provided to foster youth through an interagency partner or a contractor.
- Reviewing and documenting, at least monthly during their visits with youth, whether youth receive services according to agreed‑upon time frames and frequencies.
- Documenting all efforts to collaborate with interagency partners to ensure timely service delivery, including efforts to obtain documentation of needed services, time frames, and delivered services.
Agency response status:
Pending
Recommendation 4
To ensure that it has the necessary documentation to identify all services that partner agencies provide to youth and to ensure the timeliness of those services, the department should propose a change to the MOU to provide for information sharing. This information should include the types of services that youth are scheduled to receive, the dates the youth were referred for services, and when the services were provided to ensure timely and coordinated delivery of services.
Agency response status:
Pending
Recommendation 5
To ensure that the department’s child welfare workers consistently and accurately identify, locate, and notify all possible relatives of a youth within 30 days of the youth’s removal from a caretaker, the department should develop policies and procedures for such practices by October 2026.
Agency response status:
Pending
Recommendation 6
To ensure that foster youth fully benefit from their family network, the department should, by October 2026, include provisions for continued engagement with siblings and sibling relationship development and maintenance in its five‑year System Improvement Plan for 2024 through 2029.
Agency response status:
Pending
Recommendation 7
To ensure that it provides a safe space for foster children and youth in the new transitional shelter, the department should, by October 2026, develop policies and processes for tracking and minimizing overstays at its transitional shelter. The policies and processes should include a biannual review that analyzes trends and outcomes of strategies the department uses to minimize overstays, including a determination of the effectiveness and appropriateness of each strategy.
Agency response status:
Pending
Recommendation 8
To ensure that it identifies and corrects any past deficiencies before it reopens the new transitional shelter, the department should, by October 2026, collaborate with its transitional shelter contractors and implement policies and processes for the quarterly evaluation of transitional center performance, such as reviewing compliance with its operating standards, facility standards, and standards of reporting critical incidents. The policies and processes should include the documentation of corrective actions. The department should also implement procedures for tracking trends in critical incidents at the new facility to ensure that it can address any deficiencies it identifies.
Agency response status:
Pending
Recommendation 9
To ensure that department staff receive the required core and continuing training in a timely manner, the department should do the following by October 2026:
- Develop and document a process to track child welfare workers’ and supervisors’ progress in completing all required continuing training and report regularly to department management the training completion records for all staff. This process should include creating periodic reminders for child welfare workers and supervisors to complete annual continuing training.
- Establish processes to hold child welfare workers and supervisors accountable for completing the core training and annual continuing training. For example, the process could incorporate completion of training requirements in staff performance appraisals.
Agency response status:
Pending
Recommendation 10
To ensure that it can monitor the timely provision of services, the department should, by October 2026, make sure that all contracts include the RBA measures, such as timeliness performance metrics for service provision.
Agency response status:
Pending
