CPS

Budget cuts are threatening reform efforts at Sacramento County's long-troubled Child Protective Services agency, according to two reports released Tuesday.

Laura Coulthard, director of Sacramento County's Child Protective Services, has taken an extended leave of absence from the agency, officials confirmed Tuesday.

During the trial, jurors watched the tape of Jonathan Lamar Perry telling detectives how he beat his girlfriend's little boy to death, but they still deliberated almost three days before convicting him Tuesday of second-degree murder.

First came the denial, followed by a voice mail Jonathan Lamar Perry left on a detective's answering machine saying he wanted to "confess" to "whupping" his girlfriend's 4-year-old son.

A searing internal review of Sacramento County's Child Protective Services has concluded that judgment errors and bias among agency workers were factors in the 2008 death of a 4 1/2-year-old foster child.

A disproportionately high number of foster children in Sacramento are shuffled in assembly-line fashion through numerous placements, too many social workers and a disjointed medical system that even insiders don't understand, the Sacramento County grand jury has found.

A disproportionately high number of foster children in Sacramento are shuffled in assembly line fashion through numerous placements, too many social workers and a disjointed medical system that even insiders don't understand, the Sacramento County grand jury has found.

Sacramento County's Child Protective Services needs to step up progress on completing its policy manual more than a year after the agency was warned that its guidelines were outdated, inconsistent and contradictory, according to a new citizens' report.

The Sacramento foster mother who was caring for 4½-year-old Amariana Crenshaw when she died in a mysterious 2008 fire has been banned for life from providing foster care in California.

Sacramento County's Child Protective Services needs to step up progress on completing its policy manual, more than a year after the troubled agency was warned that its guidelines were outdated, inconsistent and contradictory, according to a new citizens' report scheduled to go before county officials today.

Child abuse and neglect were rampant in a crowded North Natomas foster home, where children attacked one another, their phone usage was tightly controlled and their foster mother lied to social workers about the chaotic conditions, according to new accusations by the California Department of Social Services.

A 5-month-old baby girl lay dead for days and possibly even weeks in her mother's Rancho Cordova apartment after a communication snafu between two Sacramento County agencies delayed an investigation into possible child neglect.

At least four Sacramento children were critically injured and two have died of suspected abuse or neglect in the first four months of this year as budget cuts batter local social services programs, The Bee has learned.

This week, the state Department of Social Services will begin imposing new limits on foster-care capacity that officials hope will improve quality of care – and potentially weed out profiteers.

The 41-year-old Sacramento foster mother ordered by the state to get out of the child care business has challenged the decision to decertify her.

At the end of the month, Julia Noto is losing her Child Protective Services job as a nurse going into homes with babies, most with mothers who used drugs during pregnancy.

More than two years after Amariana Crenshaw died in foster care, her tiny body burned beyond recognition, the state of California has cut off her Sacramento foster mom from caring for vulnerable children.

Amariana Crenshaw, the Sacramento foster child found dead at 4 1/2 after a fire caused by a Molotov cocktail, had suffered more injuries in foster care than appear to have been known by county and state regulators.

Authorities said they were stymied a few weeks into their investigation of the 2008 killing of 4 1/2-year-old Amariana Crenshaw. Now, two years later, police continue to face that investigatory "brick wall."

Tracy Dossman considered herself a specialist in providing foster care to teenage boys. She wasn't sure she wanted to take small children.

On the second anniversary of Amariana Antoinette Crenshaw's death, police still have no suspects, and a spokesman says their criminal investigation has stalled.

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors on Friday directed the County Executive's Office to find ways to restore some funding for Child Protective Services.

Programs that have contributed to a drop in child abuse deaths in Sacramento County this year are likely to fall victim to the latest round of budget cuts, officials said Thursday.

Sacramento County's Child Protective Services division would slash 199 jobs, monitor fewer youngsters and put less emphasis on abuse prevention under the most recent round of proposed budget cuts.

The secrets inside a two-bedroom apartment in Fair Oaks began to publicly unravel Friday in a Sacramento courtroom, where a mother and her boyfriend were ordered to stand trial in connection with the beating death of a 3-year-old girl.

Two Sacramento Bee reporters have won a national award from the Society of Professional Journalists for their work uncovering problems and errors at Sacramento County's Child Protective Services department.

About nine hours after 4-year-old Jahmaurae Allen died last July, the Sacramento County sheriff's detective investigating the case got a voice-mail message at work from Jonathan Lamar Perry.

Sacramento's embattled Child Protective Services got the nod Tuesday from the Board of Supervisors to hire an outside consultant, but a panel of citizens wants to make sure the agency gets its money's worth.

Sacramento County officials are set to initiate sweeping changes at Child Protective Services today in response to mounting criticism of the agency over a recent spike in child deaths.

Pressure mounted Tuesday for a requirement that California's child protection agencies conduct criminal background checks on prospective social workers before they can be hired.