Children’s Services Audit

Re “Audit Faults Children’s Agency Chief,” July 16: I second the fact that this audit was not necessary or needed. Anyone, from the child to the parent to the offender to the social worker, would have easily identified Children’s Services’ problems. I should know--my case just closed. I was 13 when my case was opened, 16 when they closed it. In kid years, that’s a very long time. It took the Children’s Court almost three years to do something which should have taken one month.

One of the reasons things are so messed up is that there is a very large caseload and not enough attorneys, social workers and people to run the courts. My father abused me. But still he had regular visits with my brother and me. That should not have happened. It wouldn’t have if our social workers would have been able to spend more time on our case--we had at least seven social workers, at least that’s when I stopped counting. Cases were rotated from worker to worker every three months, which meant new people to explain our whole story to, why we felt this or that, time and time again. And all this before I turned 17. Thanks to my wonderful experiences, my childhood was marred by visits from social workers during school hours and going to court, which is not exactly Disneyland.

MARISA VITALE

Long Beach