Despite that social worker’s own hesitations about Johnson’s ability to care for her child, the new records show officials responsible for safeguarding the girl repeatedly chose not to …
The details of what Sophia and others told social workers about her suspected abuse are revealed in 400 pages of documents obtained by this news organization through a court petition. Their release – which the county repeatedly sought to block – culminates ainto who failed Sophia in the final months of her life.
Myriad instances of blank forms and incorrectly filled out paperwork litter the records, highlighting a concerning and occasionally haphazard record-keeping system, one expert said. “We don’t have crystal balls, and we’re never going to get it perfect,” the expert, Nicol Stolar-Peterson, said in an interview. “But looking at this case, there were definitely opportunities by the agency to investigate further — or to investigate at all — and to help keep her safe.
Sophia’s mother did not make it easy for county workers to track her down. She moved frequently, was usually unreachable by phone and failed to show up for scheduled meetings. As the investigation wore on, she repeatedly threatened not to work with the agency. The social worker would often go weeks between seeing Sophia, records show.
“Why wouldn’t you help a child who says she’s being hit? I just don’t understand it,” Johnson said in an interview, referring to the admission in the park. “They didn’t do their job at all. I just feel like they didn’t care.” After that meeting, the social worker noted in her report that she didn’t have enough evidence to remove the child from her biological mother, and took no further steps to interview the girl.who filed a claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, against Alameda County earlier this month“Social workers have the ability to send children to professional forensic interviewers, whose entire job it is to interview children who have been abused; that wasn’t enacted,” Sanchez said.
“Minor was also observed with some markings to her body that appeared to be old cigarette burns/marks,” the report quoting medical staff read. “When mother was questioned about these marks, mother stated that they were from ice packs that had been left on too long.”Yet no record exists of a county social worker ever reaching out to either hospital employee, according to the documents.
A different social worker than the one who investigated Sophia’s wellbeing earlier in 2021 ended up speaking with Sophia in the days after she appeared at the Kaiser Permanente hospital in September 2021. The girl said she felt safe with her mother. It’s unclear if the interview happened in the presence of Samantha Johnson.
There is record of an agency social worker at least twice calling a number belonging to Jackson months before the June complaint, but no records of anyone actually speaking to him or seeing him in person. If a conversation did take place, it would almost certainly have been noted in the case worker’s call logs.
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