LA County to end psychological screening of DCFS trainees under $2.7 million settlement

Los Angeles County social worker trainees will no longer be subjected to preemployment psychological evaluations that over four decades have caused some applicants to lose internships and job offers based on assumptions about their mental health, according to a sweeping $2.7 million settlement.

The settlement, approved by the county Board of Supervisors on March 19, is the culmination of a 2021 lawsuit filed by two graduates of USC’s Masters of Social Work program who are both sexual assault victims experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.

The plaintiffs, identified in court documents as Jane Doe and Mary Roe, stated in the lawsuit that the county failed to explore possible accommodations for them in the Department of Children and Family Services, as required by federal law.

In November 2022, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Barbara Scheper rejected the county’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit and granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs.

“We knew that what happened to us wasn’t right, and we brought this case to ensure that no other applicants ever had to go through what we did — and now, thankfully, they won’t,” Doe said in a statement.

The settlement is significant, said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Sean Betouliere of Disability Rights Advocates based in Berkeley.

“The psychological evaluation that our clients challenged had been used for years to screen out well-qualified interns and employee applicants with mental health disabilities, and in the time since we brought this case we have heard from many other individuals who have had their lives and careers derailed as a result of it, Betouliere said.

“As a result of this settlement, that will finally stop — and we hope that’s some small vindication not just for our own clients, but for everyone else who was affected by the county’s discriminatory evaluation.”

DCFS officials declined to comment on the settlement Wednesday, March 27.

The plaintiffs had planned to spend their careers serving the county’s most vulnerable children and families, including those who, like themselves, had experienced sexual abuse, assault and other significant trauma, Betouliere said.

While attending USC, the plaintiffs were selected for DCFS’ federally funded trainee program, which provides students with an $18,500 educational stipend for each year of their studies, a supervised internship and, upon graduation, employment as a children’s social worker.

In early 2020, midway through their first year of graduate school, Doe and Roe successfully interviewed with DCFS and were offered supervised internships to be followed by permanent employment, the suit states.

“However, before either plaintiff could begin work, they were each required to undergo a mandatory psychological evaluation, during which the county asked them about previous mental health diagnoses, medications and treatment; their past experiences of sexual abuse; and other topics with no bearing on plaintiffs’ ability to perform their future jobs,” the suit says.

The evaluations, essentially the same as those used for police officers, are designed to identify and screen out applicants with PTSD, anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. They are not administered by any other children’s protective services agency in the United States, according to Betouliere.

Following the “unlawful and unnecessary” evaluations, the county rescinded Doe and Roe’s internship and the job offers they had spent years working toward, the suit alleges.

Additionally, the county refused to provide the plaintiffs with copies of their psychological assessments, information about the job duties they believed they could not perform or the risks they supposedly posed.

Doe and Roe alleged that for nearly four decades, DCFS relied on its discriminatory psychological evaluations to reject large numbers of otherwise qualified applicants every year, including nearly 20% of those participating in its Masters of Social Work Trainee Program.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, trainee program interns will no longer be subjected to a psychological evaluation. Additionally, a team of “well-qualified” experts will review and revise the county’s evaluation protocol for children’s social worker employee applicants to ensure evaluations are job-related and “consistent with business necessity.”

Roe said the settlement should lead to a better, stronger and more diverse DCFS workforce:

“DCFS is chronically understaffed, and yet for years they were turning away a significant percentage of their applicants out of a belief that anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other mental health disabilities disqualified them from the job,” Roe said. “Now, hopefully, people who have those disabilities but can still do the job well will actually be hired, and make a positive contribution to both DCFS itself and the children and families that it serves.”