Children’s Center Oversight Plan OKd

The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a plan to improve oversight and management of the county’s troubled MacLaren Children’s Center.

For years, the El Monte facility has had problems in dealing with troubled and emotionally disturbed children and youths in the county’s care. A recent report by a group of experts blamed many of those problems on the fact that five county departments all had a hand in overseeing the children--Children and Family Services, Health Services, Mental Health, Probation and the Chief Administrative Office.

Under the plan adopted 5 to 0 Tuesday, one manager at MacLaren will coordinate the activities of all departments under a newly created InterAgency Consortium.

One immediate improvement, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said, would be that all information regarding each child will now be in one central file, instead of potentially five. The board also approved having an outside, independent quality assurance review of the center.