After years of dysfunction, the Alameda County Department of Children and Family Services will now be under the oversight of the California Department of Social Services, said state Sen. Aisha Wahab at an Oakland news conference.
This move represents the first step of state intervention, and if the problems continue, the state can completely take over the functioning of the agency.
Speaking outside the Alameda County Administrative Building on Wednesday, Wahab, D-Fremont, said that the state took this step after the California Department of Social Services conducted an on-site review of the County Department of Children and Family Services in March.
The resulting report found that the agency required technical assistance and support to ensure that state welfare laws and regulations are followed, according to a letter from the CDSS to the DCFS.
Wahab took aim at the Board of Supervisors for what she said was their lack of accountability and for allegedly not prioritizing the issues highlighted in multiple audits and reports.
“If you cannot protect these children, the public may decide what to do about you,” Wahab said, addressing the Board, none of whom were present at the news conference. “The failure is public, the deadlines are public, and from this day forward, the accountability will be public.”
A leading DCFS critic
Wahab, a former foster youth herself, has been at the forefront of criticizing the county’s mismanagement of the DCFS.
In 2025, she requested that the state audit the Alameda County DCFS through the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
The audit, which was released in September 2025, found that DCFS failed to start about 50% of investigations within the time allowed, failed to ensure that foster youth received medical care and mental health services promptly, failed to report critical incidents at its Transitional Shelter Care Facility adequately, and often failed to ensure that foster children were able to keep in touch with family.
Also, the audit revealed that from fiscal years 2019-20 through 2024-25, the department’s vacancy rates doubled from 17% to 34% for child welfare workers, and more than doubled from 8% to about 18% for supervisors.
“If you cannot protect these children, the public may decide what to do about you. The failure is public, the deadlines are public, and from this day forward, the accountability will be public.”
State Sen. Aisha Wahab
Following the audit, Wahab established the DCFS Audit Implementation Taskforce in December 2025, hosting regular meetings starting in January.
Now, the CDSS’s most recent review, which included 67 referrals and 52 foster care cases, has uncovered other sobering statistics, suggesting that the systemic issues at DCFS persist.
For instance, 72% of the referrals were deemed not to need an in-person response or investigation, often with missing or incomplete information.
In multiple cases, there was a failure to meet the stipulated response times, including high-priority cases that warrant a response within 24 hours.
High caseloads, long waits
Understaffing, high caseloads, and a lack of resources greatly hampered service delivery; in the entire county, there is only one staff member dedicated to finding family members and relatives to place children with.
When testing out the child abuse and neglect hotline, the CDSS encountered longer-than-average wait times, sometimes more than an hour.
“These are children waiting while adults fail them at every step,” said Wahab at the news conference.
Wahab also mentioned the case of eight-year-old Sophia Mason, who was found dead in 2022 after allegedly suffering sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her mother — even after repeated reports to DCFS about signs of abuse from doctors, teachers, and relatives.
In an interview following the news conference, Wahab demanded more accountability from the Board of Supervisors.
“Kids are literally being killed, raped under their watch,” she said. “The entire Board of Supervisors are absolutely failing children.”
The CDSS will now assist the county DCFS in formulating a Corrective Action Plan to address the agency’s shortcomings and conduct site visits to ensure that the plan is being followed. The county must implement the plan by Oct. 1.
The office of County Board of Supervisors President David Haubert did not immediately respond to a request for comment.