Last week, the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury released a second report from its work during the 2022-2023 year. In its first report, the jury found the county’s elections integrity to be sound. The second report was not so glowing. 

In the latest HUMBOLDT CONVERSATIONS, grand jury foreperson John Heckel speaks with the Outpost’s John Kennedy O’Connor about the state of child welfare services locally — a system much-scrutinized for its perceived dysfunction in recent years.

Tune in above and/or peruse the transcript below.

O’CONNOR:

Well, welcome to another Humboldt Conversation. I’m really pleased to say today we’re joined by John Heckel, who is the jury foreperson for the 2022-2023 Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury. John, thank you for joining us for a Humboldt Conversation. It’s very nice to meet you.

Now, you just issued actually two reports for this particular season. The first one was not particularly contentious. It was about voter fraud, or potential voter fraud. And basically the jury’s decision was that we should have a vote on the election.

HECKEL:

Well, not exactly voter fraud. What we did was we took the temperature of the national climate and the national climate stories kept popping up about election difficulties, illegal elections, all of that stuff. So we decided what we wanted to do was take a look at Humboldt County’s elections and we were pretty sure that the volunteers that came from the community and served us did a great job. We investigated, we watched the whole process and then we issued a report in an attempt to assure the voters of Humboldt County that they can trust their local elections regardless of what it says on a national level.

O’CONNOR:

But the second report was much more contentious.

HECKEL:

Contentious is an interesting way of saying it.

O’CONNOR:

Well, it was regarding a complaint that actually you received about the child welfare services and how I think the word we used was dysfunctional and how their dysfunctionality was creating problems for child care services in the court system particularly. So what are the conclusions?

HECKEL:

Part of the complaint was also about the allegation that there was a toxic environment in child welfare services and then the complaint was specific about a number of issues within the department. So the grand jury which is charged by the penal code to look at all complaints that come in. Citizens of Humboldt County can send a fill out a complaint form and file the complaint with the grand jury and then we take all of those complaints seriously and we look at what’s what’s happening.

And we began that investigation and then discovered that in fact child welfare services within the county is dysfunctional, is running at maybe 50 to 60 percent filled position. There are a number of positions that are vacant that have been allocated. The sums for the positions have been allocated. So you’ve got literally let’s say you’ve got five people trying to do the work of ten people right. So the allocations for the majority of those other five people that are not filled, the sums of money has been allocated. So what happens is those five people are asked to work overtime. They create an incredibly difficult situation, stress, burnout and then what happens is those people quit.

So if you started with the five and you create that kind of toxic environment in child welfare services then you got more people that resign and so there’s a cycle that’s currently going on in relationship to that. And then the other thing we’ve discovered is that that also causes a problem in terms of any child that is in the system or any number of different reports that the social workers have to file in relationship to that child for the court system. And we found there’s a humongous delay in filing of those reports. And we discovered that there is statistical evidence that the longer a child is in the system the more traumatic it is for the child. And the sooner that we can make a decision regarding a child, whether to take that child put her in permanent foster care or return it to the home, the better for the child.

And Humboldt County Child Welfare Services is not doing a very good job in all of those regards.

O’CONNOR:

You’re obviously charged with looking into this and reporting findings, but are you also charged with coming up with the help?

HECKEL:

Yes, the penal code is really interesting about this in terms of the civil grand jury system in California. We can’t just criticize, we can’t just find failings within county government or city government or special districts or whatever. We have to come up with recommendations on how to solve the problem. So in this particular report, and I encourage people to read the whole report, then people can read what the Board of Supervisors are reading. Hopefully at this minute they’re taking a look at the report, looking at the recommendations. There’s some very specific recommendations in relationship to hiring practices, what the county can do to hire and to attract more social workers within the system. There are specific recommendations of what it can do in the training of those social workers that come in and how to create an environment so that the social workers that do come in and work within the system work within a more productive and enjoyable environment.

O’CONNOR:

To the board of supervisors to implement that, or do you have your budget to put on in terms of time constraints that this has to happen?

HECKEL:

Yes, the recommendations, typically, civil grand juries make recommendations addressed to specific people, in this case, Board of Supervisors, what they want the Board of Supervisors to do and by when they want the Board of Supervisors to do it. So this report starts a dialogue. The whole idea is that the civil grand jury starts a dialogue, and it starts a dialogue between the civil grand jury, what they discovered, the press, you, you get engaged in the dialogue, and the Board of Supervisors are required by the penal code to respond to all the findings and recommendations.

And because the Board of Supervisors is a board, and so their responses are put on the agenda and the public has a chance to comment on their responses, they have 90 days to respond. So the clock started ticking last week when that report came out or at the beginning of this week, so by 90 days from whenever the date of the release of the report is, Board of Supervisors has to respond. And they have to agree or disagree, and if they disagree with a recommendation or a finding, they have to state why. So now you have a dialogue, and the goal is to make that dialogue public so that people know about that dialogue and they can get engaged with that process.

O’CONNOR:

We, the Outpost, did actually publish your report on our website, so you can go look there. It did actually already spark a very healthy…

HECKEL:

I’ve read that. I’ve read the debate. I’ve read the debate.

O’CONNOR:

I know you can’t tell us exactly what you’re working but there are more reports coming in this season.

HECKEL:

Well, I can’t even tell you that because if I were to tell you that, that would be a violation of confidentiality. And if you if you if you read what’s going on nationally, the issue of confidentiality and grand juries is a constant topic for the press. And if we violated confidentiality, people wouldn’t talk to us. That makes sense, right? The only way that people talk to us is they know that we will never reveal who we talk to, what they said, all of that stuff. And all the members of the grand jury are sworn to confidentiality for life. It’s not even a matter of like our term is over in a month and a half from now. And even for the rest of our lives, we can’t talk about what went on in that room.

O’CONNOR:

That’s actually very, very reassuring and very good to know. But you are actually of course looking for jurors.

HECKEL:

Next year, right. Right now, there are applications for next year’s grand jury available on the county website and also at the grand jury office in the courthouse. They can drop by, physically take one from the door, fill it out, or they can go to the county website. And we’re really, really, as someone who’s lived in Humboldt County for almost 50 years, I’m really grateful to the other 19 grand jury people who have volunteered and who have served this whole year. And hopefully we can find another group to take over and do next year. Absolutely, it’s very, very important.

O’CONNOR:

John, thank you so much indeed for joining us today for a Humboldt Conversation.

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