Santa Clara County Plans to Fire Social Workers After Foster Care Toddler Death

“Twelve DFCS staff members were placed on paid administrative leave while the investigations proceeded,” Kinnear-Rausch said in the memo.

“Based on the findings of the investigations to date, four staff members have been recommended to be terminated from county employment, four have been cleared of any wrongdoing that would merit any discipline at this time and will be returning to work, three staff members have retired or resigned from county service, and one remains on paid administrative leave pending further investigation,” she said.

Jaxon, a special needs child, was placed by the county agency into the care of Bridget Michelle Martinez, a relative of his father’s, in late February.

He died on April 9 after authorities said he was repeatedly sexually and physically assaulted by Martinez’s 17-year-old son. The son, who has since turned 18, is currently facing murder and assault charges in juvenile court but could ultimately be transferred to adult court.

Martinez was convicted in 2014 of felony child endangerment tied to a DUI in 2014, when her own 1-year-old child was in the car with her.

Such a conviction is supposed to bar child welfare workers from placing a child in Martinez’s care, even in an emergency.

In approving Martinez as the caregiver for Jaxon, a social worker, their supervisor, division manager and bureau manager all signed off on a report certifying that Martinez had not been convicted of a “non-exemptible crime,” according to internal documents released by the county in response to a records request from KQED.

In the same document, Martinez was required to make a statement about her criminal record. Next to a question asking if she was “ever arrested for a crime against a child,” she checked the “No” box. On the same page, in an area where prospective caregivers are required to share details about their criminal convictions, she wrote that she had a “DUI in 2014 with kid being in car.”

The social worker drafting a justification report about Martinez to allow the placement of Jaxon appears to have left out any mention of the 2014 DUI, but does mention a 2019 DUI in another county. She notes Martinez has attended past DUI programming and was sober for five years at the time, according to the documents.

In a statement emailed to KQED on Tuesday, Kinnear-Rausch called Jaxon’s death a “heartbreaking tragedy,” and said the four workers up for termination were “involved in placing Jaxon in the home where he experienced abuse.”

However, she didn’t specify which employees or their job titles, nor what the county is alleging as the specific grounds for their firing.

“Our investigation remains ongoing, including with respect to other aspects of how his case was handled,” she said.

The county’s child welfare department was previously placed under state oversight after the deaths of two other children in foster care in 2023, including the fentanyl poisoning of 3-month-old Phoenix Castro and the stabbing death of 6-year-old Jordan Walker.

In late April, the county announced the California Department of Social Services would work with the county to “extend and update” that oversight agreement, in light of Jaxon’s death.

The county department also pledged to strengthen guardrails around where children can be placed, even in emergencies, requiring dedicated staff to approve such placements, and child welfare or criminal record histories will need to be signed off on by executives.

“We are committed to supporting our DFCS staff as they work every day to improve these systems and keep children across our county as safe as possible,” Kinnear-Rausch said in the statement.

In recent years, and in response to the tragic deaths of children in the foster system in the county, some local leaders, including County Supervisor Sylvia Arenas, have expressed concerns that the county’s child welfare system has put too much emphasis on keeping children with their families over the needs of their overall safety.

Meanwhile, unionized social workers at the agency have raised alarms about overwhelm, chronic understaffing, unsustainable caseloads and burnout, which they say ultimately jeopardize the safety of children in the county’s systems.