Far-away foster placements, social service shortcomings keeping Alameda County foster kids from family reunification

By Jui Sarwate

Foster children from Alameda County are facing increasingly long odds of being reunited with their families because of distant out-of-county placements, inadequate social worker staffing, and other shortcomings of the county’s social services department, according to a data analysis conducted by CBS News.

CBS News analyzed out-of-county placement data from the California Child Welfare Indicators Project, which showed that in 2025, Alameda was among six counties that placed more than half of its supervised children with foster families outside of their birth counties. The project is a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley, and the state Department of Social Services.

The data showed that Alameda County was one of six counties to place more than half of its foster children out of county with 20% placed 50 miles away or further, and others sent as far as 200 miles away.

According to the data, San Francisco is the other Bay Area county to place more than half its foster children out of the county in 2025. Although San Francisco places more foster children out-of-county compared to Alameda County (66%), San Francisco places more children in adjacent counties within the Bay Area than Alameda County.

In September, the State of California conducted an audit of Alameda County’s Department of Children and Family Services and found a lack of documentation on placement efforts and family-finding. As a result, “the department could not demonstrate or did not ensure that youth received needed services in a timely manner,” the audit stated.

The audit also found that high job vacancies within the Children and Family Services Department also contributed to “shortcomings” in family-finding and placement. The audit stated that the department “did not prioritize efforts to ensure that foster youth had ongoing connections with family members.”

Alameda County has also been the subject of a lawsuit filed by the City of Hayward in 2023 in the Alameda County Superior Court asking a judge to intervene “to protect children at an Alameda County transitional center where foster children frequently go missing and are knowingly being exposed to and/or coerced into drug use, assaults and other forms of violence, sex trafficking and prostitution.” The county has said it does not agree with the characterization of the incidents and would not comment on the litigation, which is still ongoing.

The federal Administration for Children & Families, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, states that protecting the child’s safety and stability is the number one goal of child welfare agencies. Assessments following any referrals for child abuse and neglect help determine a child’s at-home risk and whether they need to be removed and placed out-of-home.

Social workers determining placement need to weigh the importance of proximity against placing the child with family, among other principles of child welfare and family preservation, according to Dr. David Crampton, associate professor at Case Western Reserve University.

“Children placed closer to home have a higher chance of reunification,” Crampton said.

“Due to the kin-focused placement efforts that the state and counties are pursuing, a number of the out-of-county placements could have been made intentionally in order to keep children with a relative or to keep sibling groups together,” said Dr. Daniel Webster of the CCWIP.

Alameda County’s placements adhere to laws governing child welfare and foster youth reunification. Under California Family and Juvenile rules

, “if a child is removed from the custody of a parent or legal guardian, the court must order the county welfare department to provide reunification services to the child and the child’s mother and statutorily presumed parent, or the child’s legal guardian, to facilitate reunification of the family.”

However, the law

 goes on to explain that if a court orders reunification services, the court must also order visitation between the child and its parents or guardians. Those visits “are to be as frequent as possible, consistent with the well-being of the child.”

One Alameda County mother, Karina, began the reunification process two years ago. Although she has been working to fulfill the reunification prerequisites set by her child’s social worker, her child has been placed multiple times and at distances that add obstacles to her efforts.

On average, California foster youth were placed 3.7 times over 1,000 days in 2025, according to CCWIP data. Karina says her child was placed more than six times across multiple California counties over the past 1,000 days including when the county sent her child to a foster home over 400 miles away in San Bernardino County last year.

“Having my child placed so far from me has been extremely difficult and obstructs any efforts for supervised visitation and reunification,” Karina says.

As she works multiple jobs and is responsible for the care of her other child, Karina and her lawyer stated in an email to the assigned social worker that placing the child in San Bernardino will impact visitation, especially as they are in the process of reunification.

The child was still placed over 400 miles away, and Karina was required to make supervised visits as the social worker explained that she and her child “need to have as many successful visits as possible by the next court hearing.” In September, the county moved the child once again from Alameda County to a placement in San Bernardino County before informing Karina. The family has yet to be reunified.

Of the over 24,400 California children exiting foster care in 2024, 48% were reunified with their birth parents. Distance could impact a child’s reunification with their parents, who are required to, among other prerequisites, attend scheduled, supervised meetings with their child.

Crampton explains that placing children in their own communities allows children to have less disrupted schooling, maintain their connection with friends, and stay connected to their cultural or religious communities.

There is both a lack of foster families and not enough social workers; the latter is due to the challenging nature of the job, said Dr. Jill Berrick, professor of social welfare at UC Berkeley, adding that social workers are inundated with cases amid a statewide workforce shortage.

When it comes to foster families, Berrick thinks that the issue isn’t just that there are too few of them. The challenge lies in the lack of variety of foster families to provide options for each child’s needs. When looking for suitable placements for children in care, social workers are looking for people who are best suited to care for a child’s medical, mental health, cultural or religious needs.

“Social workers aren’t just looking for a bed. They’re looking for a home,” Berrick said.

State Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Fremont) believes that ongoing and long-term issues within the county’s welfare service departments originate from the culture established by its leaders.

“There is a lack of transparency and urgency in Alameda County,” Wahab said, characterizing the county’s response to the audit’s finding as minimal. “There needs to be a change in leadership across the county and the county’s Department of Children and Family Services.”

Alameda County is required to respond and provide updates to the State Auditor’s findings on the 60-day, 6-month, and 1-year anniversaries of the audit’s publishing. As the audit was published on September 23, the county’s 60-day response is expected by Saturday.