California failed us as children. Now it must protect the next generation.

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OPINION —  In August, California lawmakers reached a hard-won compromise over childhood sexual abuse claims against public institutions. In approving a final agreement on Senate Bill 577, they rejected some of the most sweeping proposals to limit survivors’ rights and added measures aimed at protecting children in foster care and juvenile justice systems today.

As two women who grew up inside the systems at the center of this debate, we have followed this bill closely. Between us, we have lived through foster care, group homes, juvenile detention and the long aftermath of systems that claimed to protect us while too often causing harm. 

We also lead organizations that exist because thousands of young people have told us, again and again, that what happened to us is still happening to them.

The progress represented by SB 577 reflects the work of survivors, young people, advocates and legislative leaders who insisted that the conversation could not only be about what the government pays after a child is harmed. It must also be about what the government does to prevent that harm in the first place. The challenge now is to fulfill that promise to California’s children.

The young people we advocate with were placed by the state in foster homes, shelters, group homes, juvenile halls, camps and other settings selected, licensed, funded, operated or supervised by government agencies. Too many were then harmed by adults the government had given extraordinary power over their lives. 

That harm is not confined to the past. New allegations of abuse against children in government care continue to emerge. Eighty-eight people recently filed lawsuits alleging they were raped, fondled and subjected to retaliation as children in the care of San Diego’s probation and health and human services agencies. Many said they were sexually assaulted by social workers or probation officers — the very state actors charged with keeping them safe.

For a child in foster care or juvenile detention, the power imbalance that enables this is inherent and profound. 

You may not be able to choose where you sleep, who supervises you or whether you can leave when you are unsafe. The people responsible for your safety, including those who violate it, may also control your freedom, your discipline, your placement, your access to family and lawyers and your very future.

The bill the legislature passed this week begins to recognize this. 

It creates stronger outside scrutiny of places where children are placed or confined, requires action when abuse or exploitation is alleged, strengthens protections for children who report harm, and begins building more independent oversight of the systems responsible for their safety. 

But passing written protections is not the same as making children safe. The harder work begins now. If California wants to reduce the financial burden of compensating survivors, it must reduce the conditions that create survivors. 

That requires three things.

First, California must build and fund the alternatives young people need: safe housing, kinship support, quality family-based care, reunification support, credible community-led programs, and the material resources that keep young people safely connected to people who love them. 

Second, California must dramatically reduce and ultimately end reliance on youth incarceration, foster care shelters, and congregate care and create supports that allow children to live safely in families and communities.

Third, California must ensure that oversight leads to consequences. That requires strong licensing; meaningful monitoring; confidential access to lawyers, advocates, family members and other trusted adults; and swift action when abuse occurs.

Monitoring is important, but it cannot just be a way to document harm while children continue to be sent to places that fail to keep them safe. Ultimately, prevention requires keeping children out of institutions where abuse has been documented for decades. That means restricting admissions, closing unsafe facilities, and supporting children in families and communities. 

The measure of success will not be whether California found a compromise on damages. It will be whether fewer children are abused because of what California does next. 

Survivors deserve justice. Children still in these systems deserve something more: not to become survivors at all. 

Jennifer Rodriguez is executive director of the Youth Law Center. Jessica Nowlan is president of Reimagine Freedom.