Audio slide show: A look at the people behind the process
Social workers give their perspective on child abuse and neglect inquiries, and a repentant mother tells her side of the story.
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Darlene Compton had her son, Jontay, taken away from her in November 2008. The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, the largest county-run system in the nation, is giving second chances -- and sometimes more -- to hundreds of its most troubled parents, like Compton, in an effort to keep kids out of foster care. It's part of what experts see as one of the nation's most promising experiments in child welfare. It is also one of the riskiest, putting many more children back into homes once deemed unfit, where some may suffer further injury or even death.
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