Jacks Case, Rise in Reports Might Chip Away at Strides

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) fired the six child welfare workers who had come in contact with the case, explaining they "just didn't do their jobs."

Union officials have clashed with the mayor, filed appeals on behalf of the fired workers and held a rally to renounce the "scapegoating" of these individuals.

But this is not just a case of social workers gone bad, many critics, including former social worker and current D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), said.

Explaining the failure of the agency in this case requires more nuance than the explanations of the past decade, when hundreds of cases stacked up in piles, unopened by an understaffed agency that was under siege.

The agency is caught in a pernicious loop sparked by the 1989 court case, LaShawn A. v. Barry, which sent it into federal receivership for almost a decade. The conditions of the lawsuit brought about tremendous change and improvement in the agency, but many say it also created a palpable shift in the culture there.

"The agency is so compliance-driven, constantly trying to be in compliance with the federal lawsuit, that it is losing individual judgment of the worker," Wells said.

The Jacks case was a prime example of this practice, Meltzer said. The social workers and their bosses "went through the motions but repeatedly missed the facts, made poor decisions and acted to close the door" for helping the family, she said.

Wells said the Jacks case offers a classic example of how two social workers operating under different standards respond: the school social worker was answering to her mission, while the city social worker was also trying to comply with a prescribed list of standards.

Kathy Lopes, a school social worker, called the child welfare agency because Brittany Jacks had not been to class at Booker T. Washington Public Charter School for more than a month. City officials released a recording of Lopes's agitated calls to the Child and Family Services Agency hotline and the steely response of the city social worker answering. Lopes went to the Jacks home twice, she said. She never saw Brittany but did see Banita Jacks, who did not let her inside.

"The social worker from the high school did not stop until she saw the mom," Wells said. "The social worker at CFSA stopped after three visits and did nothing more than leave a note."

The agency is at a "plateau," Wells said.

"This case is not itself a setback," he said. "But it's really important right now for the agency to examine its mistakes here. And move forward."