Jul 20, 2008

Grand jury critical of group's response

Nonprofit says it has fixed counseling communication problem

By Mark Abramson / Daily News Staff Writer

A San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury criticized a nonprofit organization in a report released last week for not sufficently working with police to assist domestic violence victims.

The grand jury critiqued Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse (CORA) for not being responsive to police officers' pages when they requested a counselor for a domestic violence victim. Police page the on-call counselor to talk to the victims by phone, unless the victim does not want to talk, the victim's residence does not have a phone or the parties are intoxicated. The grand jury report stated that at one police department, officers received a response from CORA less than 60 percent of the time.

"The shortcomings in CORA's emergency response system for domestic violence persisted too long without being addressed," the report stated. "Some of the law enforcement agencies in the county have lost confidence in the ability of the CORA counselors to respond in a timely and helpful manner."

The report included a survey of 20 agencies that was not filled out completely by many of those police departments. Several of the police departments wrote not applicable when asked if CORA answered pages while an officer was still on the scene of a domestic violence incident.

Officials with the nonprofit said they believe they have fixed the problem with a new communication system that keeps better records and does not lose calls.

"My reaction to it was mixed, because certainly we acknowledged after we did an investigation ourselves that we had problems," said Joan Pezenoski, CORA's manager of client services who oversees the counselors in the emergency response program. "(The grand jury report) was a little basic in understanding how our system operates."

The new communications system now keeps calls from getting lost while being transfered. CORA can now respond to about 98 percent of pages within 10 minutes, Pezenoski said.

"I think the report confirmed what CORA had told us as chiefs, that because they had three different systems for patching through the calls, they were not working effectively," said Redwood City police Chief Lou Cobarruviaz, who is also on CORA's board of directors.

Cobarruviaz said he heard other top law enforcement officials complaints about CORA while he was at a San Mateo County Police Chief's Association retreat last year. The issue came up when the chiefs discussed whether they should contribute financially to CORA.

The service is provided as part of a $173,000 contract with the cities and county. The county pays for a little more than half of the contract.

Pezenoski said another shortcoming of the report was its failure to look at CORA's other services. CORA has, among others services, a policy of contacting adult victims of domestic violence at least four times and juvenile victims eight times.

The report also made recommendations for fixing the problems. It proposed that the county's contract with CORA be amended to establish performance standards, and police agencies do quarterly reports on the nonprofit's response.

CORA is already meeting with police representatives quarterly to get feedback, Pezenoski said. The nonprofit hired a police liaison for its emergency program late last year to keep the program running smoothly and to address any police department concerns.

"My position has made it easier for police to communicate with CORA and for CORA to communicate with police," said Judy King, the police department liaison for the Emergency Response Program. "I think it has made it more efficient."

San Mateo police Sgt. Hugh Wilkins said that since his department started helping CORA's investigation in April, "their response has been very good. Generally when there have been delays, it is because their counselors are involved with another agency or party."



E-mail Mark Abramson at mabramson@dailynewsgroup.com.