Potentially negligent foster care agency may lose county contract

Deeply dismayed by the blunt-force trauma death on March 4 of two-year-old toddler Viola Vanclief in a foster-care home, the Board of Supervisors this week authorized a formal “Do Not Use” order for United Care, Inc., the foster-family agency that supervised the home and 87 others in Los Angeles County. More than 200 children currently placed in those homes will be reassigned to other foster-care facilities. The agency had initially been placed on “hold, do not refer” status shortly after the incident was first reported.

At this Tuesday’s meeting, the Board will consider terminating United Care, Inc.’s County contract completely. Since Viola’s death, five previous abuse complaints have emerged about the foster-parent currently under investigation in that case, including a substantiated 2002 case of neglect of her own biological child. Since 2001, United Care itself had repeatedly been accused of permitting abuse and neglect in its supervised foster homes, and at least three dozen referrals were later substantiated.