Los Angeles Roundtable for Children records, 1982-1998

Printable guide [HTML]
Request items

Summary

Creators:
University of Southern California. School of Social Work
Abstract:
The Los Angeles Roundtable For Children began in the fall of l982 with a series of informal monthly meetings convened by faculty members at the University of Southern California's School of Social Work, when child welfare leaders from the public and private sectors met to address evident deterioration of Los Angeles county's protective services. The collection contains the group's groundbreaking early volunteer research reports, designed to provide crucial missing information and recommendations for change and reform. All Roundtable reports are collected, together with "Children Now" reports published between 1989-96, reports and records of the Children's Planning Council from 1992-98, and many publications on child welfare from the city and county of Los Angeles and the State of California during this period. Also included are minutes and agendas of the Los Angeles County Commission For Children's Services from 1990-96. These materials, together with a range of miscellaneous reports on topics of concern to the Roundtable - including education, juvenile probation and protection, adolescent pregnancy prevention, and family preservation services - afford a detailed picture of child welfare services in a decade when Los Angeles County, after long neglect, attempted to provide effective protective services to its rapidly increasing juvenile population. The collection consists of reports, correspondence, and miscellaneous materials created and collected by the members of the Rountable.
Extent:
3.42 Linear Feet 4 boxes
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

[Box/folder# or item name], Los Angeles Roundtable for Children records, Collection no. 0402, Special Collections, USC Libraries, University of Southern California

Background

Scope and content:

The Los Angeles Roundtable for Children records consists of reports, correspondence, and miscellaneous materials created and collected by the members of the Rountable.

Biographical / historical:

The Los Angeles Roundtable for Children began in the fall of 1982 with a series of informal monthly meetings convened by faculty members at the University of Southern California's School of Social Work, when child welfare leaders from the public and private sectors met to address evident deterioration of Los Angeles County's protective services. Several instance of failure to protect abused and neglected children from further harm had prompted adverse press comment and public dismay. Roundtable members, who were committed to putting the interests of the region's children before those of their individual departments or agencies, determined that there was an extraordinary lack of basic information about the characteristics and needs of Los Angeles' two million children, and also about the complex organization and financing of the child welfare programs then in place.

The collection contains the group's early volunteer research reports, designed to provide crucial missing information and recommendations for change and reform. The Roundtable's recommendations were endorsed in 1986 by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which ordered the County Chief Administrative Officer to seek consensus in a strategy to implement them. Also present are documents reflecting the resulting "turf" struggle over the establishment of a Children's Planning Council to administer a separate Children's Budget. By "following the money" Roundtable researchers had discovered that 19 government departments provided more than 90 different services for children, working without coordination and between them spending fully 29% of the County's $8.6 billion annual budget.

By 1990 the Planning Council was in place, and a new group, "Children Now", with corporate funding and some shared membership with the Roundtable, had undertaken the continued provision of basic data and progress reports on child welfare in the County. Roundtable researchers then were able to address specific child welfare issues, producing reports on topics including private sector services, services for children with disabilities, mental health services, social and health services in Los Angeles County Schools, and comprehensive youth development policies. Records of The Roundtable's informal meetings in its earliest years are lacking, but those for 1989-95 reflect fully the repositioning problems experienced by the group after its initial achievements as an entirely volunteer operation. Included in the collection are the original Roundtable mission statement, and articles of incorporation taken out in 1989 when the group felt the need for a paid executive director and began to seek funding from various foundations. Of particular interest, in minutes for 1990s board meetings, are discussions of appropriate fund raising strategies, and reconsideration of membership eligibility policies, with the object of maintaining both research productivity and influence in the child welfare community.

All Roundtable reports are collected, together with "Children Now" reports published between 1989-96, reports and records of the Children's Planning Council from 1992-98, and many publications on child welfare from the city and county of Los Angeles and the State of California during this period. Also included are minutes and agendas of the Los Angeles County Commission For Children's Services from 1990-96. All these materials, together with a range of miscellaneous reports on topics of concern to the Roundtable, including education, juvenile probation and protection, adolescent pregnancy prevention, and family preservation services, afford a detailed picture of child welfare services in a decade when Los Angeles County, after long neglect, attempted to provide effective protective services to its rapidly increasing juvenile population.

Access and use

Restrictions:

COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE: Advance notice required for access.

Terms of access:

Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special Collections at specol@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Preferred citation:

[Box/folder# or item name], Los Angeles Roundtable for Children records, Collection no. 0402, Special Collections, USC Libraries, University of Southern California

Location of this collection:
Special Collections
Doheny Memorial Library, Room 209
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0411, US
Contact:
(213) 740-5900
specol@usc.edu
Website