In Los Angeles (LA) County, police- and custody-related deaths remain urgent and persistent issues. The Family Assistance Program (FAP), which the LA County Office of Violence Prevention oversees, provides trauma-informed, compassionate support to families affected by fatal encounters with the LA County Sheriff's Department. The authors assessed FAP's implementation, reach, and impact to identify strengths and areas for improvement.

Evaluation of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Family Assistance Program

Lu Dong, Shannon D. Donofry, Helin Hernandez, Jacobo Pereira-Pacheco, Nabeel Qureshi, Chloe Gomez, Mallika Bhandarkar, Deborah Kim, Nina V. Ozbardakci, Amy L. Shearer

ResearchPublished Jun 17, 2025

Police violence is a leading cause of death among young men in the United States. In Los Angeles (LA) County, police- and custody-related deaths remain urgent and persistent issues. According to the LA County Sheriff's Department (LASD), 91 individuals died from police interactions from 2023 to early 2025.

In 2019, the Family Assistance Program (FAP) was established to provide trauma-informed, compassionate support to families affected by fatal encounters with the LASD. FAP offers crisis intervention, financial assistance, mental health support, and referrals to community services, including help accessing mental health care and burial assistance.

In this report, the authors present their evaluation of FAP. The authors assessed FAP's implementation, reach, and perceived impact to identify strengths and areas for improvement. The evaluation focused on understanding how the program is operationalized, how services are delivered and experienced, and whether core objectives related to timely and sensitive support are being met.

The authors reviewed FAP's administrative data along with responses to a client survey, and they performed a database infrastructure assessment in collaboration with FAP staff. The authors examined process indicators (e.g., the timeliness of case assignments, the extent of service utilization) and outcome indicators (e.g., client satisfaction, perceived impact of services) to inform the program's refinement, guide infrastructure development, and support future evaluation efforts.

Key Findings

  • FAP responses were timely, with clinical social workers assigned to cases within three days from case intake for nearly all cases, with an average assignment time of 1.8 days.
  • Among next of kin (NOK) who accepted services, 69 percent received timely funeral reimbursements; a median amount of $7,106 was disbursed within 15 days of authorization.
  • Six of 55 FAP clients responded to our survey. Respondents reported high satisfaction with services, including counseling, burial support, and referrals.
  • Counseling recipients praised the FAP clinicians' compassion, responsiveness, and emotional validation.
  • The use of a Microsoft Access database posed significant limitations for multiuser access, data-tracking, and analysis.
  • Psychosocial data were stored outside the database in unstructured formats, limiting integration and their use for evaluation.
  • Follow-up data collection was constrained by clients' emotional sensitivities and concerns about re-traumatization.

Recommendations

  • Transition to a dedicated case management system that supports multiuser access, structured data capture, and longitudinal tracking.
  • Standardize key data fields (e.g., service types, NOK relationship, referral source) to improve data quality and analytic capacity.
  • Integrate psychosocial assessments into the case-tracking system to support holistic service delivery and evaluation.
  • Expand culturally tailored outreach and feedback mechanisms to increase client engagement and survey response rates.
  • Develop ethical protocols for collecting and analyzing sensitive data while maintaining client privacy.
  • Implement automated alerts and summary reporting tools to enhance operational oversight.

Topics

Document Details

  • Copyright: California Department of Public Health
  • Publisher: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Web-Only
  • Year: 2025
  • Pages: 20
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA3826-3
  • Document Number: RR-A3826-3

Citation

Chicago Manual of Style

Dong, Lu, Shannon D. Donofry, Helin Hernandez, Jacobo Pereira-Pacheco, Nabeel Qureshi, Chloe Gomez, Mallika Bhandarkar, Deborah Kim, Nina V. Ozbardakci, and Amy L. Shearer, Evaluation of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Family Assistance Program. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3826-3.html.
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This research was funded by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Office of Violence Prevention and conducted in the Social and Behavioral Policy Program within RAND Social and Economic Well-Being.

This publication is part of the RAND research report series. Research reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND research reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

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