As a contracted worker through Children's Division, I can provide you with 2 remedies that wouldn't heal all, but would certainly be a good start: more workers, therefore smaller caseloads, and higher pay. I have a Master's Degree and 10+ years experience in this field and make less than my cousin's son, who is a fast-food restaurant manager. This leads to a high turnover, and lesser quality of employees. Personally, I am now working in alternative care as a foster care case manager. I have 13 cases, one of them being a sibling group of 3 who live in 3 different foster homes (different dads). So, on top of the incredible amount of paperwork, documentation, court appearances, juvenile office hearings, supervised visitations, weekly staffing meetings, filing, authorization of foster placement's expenses (clothing allowances, etc.), family support team meetings (monthly), multidisciplinary team decision meetings, family finding, re-directing placements when current placements don't work out, hospital visits,coordinate parent aids, treatment plans, court reports, jail visits; I am also expected to visit the child in their foster home/current placement twice per month, visit bio mom and bio dad in their home once per month, and also establish some sort of a trusting relationship with my clients (the children). I'm here to tell you, even if I was to work 6am-9pm every day, I would still fall short. We just have to do the best that we can, with what we can, and work as a team. As overwhelmed as I am, I know that Children's Division Investigators and FCS (Family Centered Services) carry larger caseloads than we do. It is just insane. Then, every so often, when it's time for federal or state budget cuts, guess who usually comes first? Yup, Social Services. I'm not asking for a million dollars a year, but I can say that if my husband wasn't also employed full time, we would easily qualify for state assistance, and doing the meaningful and life-saving (or life-endangering) work that we do, that's not right. You are right that we do frequently hear about the bad case workers, the terrible outcomes of children dying when it could have been prevented (such as with Adrian Jones, and so many others). This needs to continue to happen, in my opinion, not to paint CD or CPS in a negative color, but to bring to light the issues that we face and what can happen when things aren't done right. These cases demand accountability. If there is indeed a problem, it needs to be examined and fixed, and the two suggestions that I provided are only a drop in a bucket of what needs to be done so that we can do our job and protect these children.
