Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic Policy Paper

Current Number Of Caseworkers

At present, there are approximately 1,019 positions allocated statewide for CPS investigations and CPS ongoing casework. According to the DHR Office of Budget and Planning, there are 439 positions now allocated for foster care placement. However, approximately 253 prevention workers are performing the work of placement workers, bringing the total number of caseworkers handling foster care cases to 692. Individual counties determine the actual duties of the workers as to investigation, ongoing case management, foster care placement or any combination of these responsibilities. Since the number of caseworkers assigned to these duties varies with the need of each county, it is difficult for the state to know how many caseworkers are performing these functions at any given time.⁷

Five hundred eighty eight additional CPS, placement workers, and supervisors are needed for DFCS to function effectively and become compliant with Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) standards.⁸ Although this is an immediate need based on FY2000 figures, the DHR FY2002 budget provides for phasing in the needed positions over a period of three years at a rate of 196 new positions each year. The Governor's budget reduces this to 100 new positions in FY 2002.⁹ There is, of course, no guarantee that the recommended positions will be allocated in succeeding years even if the Governor's proposed budget is passed for FY2002.

In calculating the number of additional positions needed to meet CWLA standards, DHR used an attrition rate of 10%. That rate, which may be the norm for most employment situations, does not approach reality under the current workplace and salary conditions of Georgia CPS workers. On average, 39% of these positions were vacated statewide in FY99 and 44% were vacated in FY00. In some counties, the rate of turnover exceeds 50% while Fulton County experienced 71% attrition in FY99.¹⁰

The state has conducted ongoing, statewide recruitment to fill position vacancies. However, these efforts have met with little success and significant vacancies persist in several counties. A pool of applicants willing to work for $22,044.00 per year with 24 hours per day, 7 days per week on call responsibility does not appear to exist. As a point of contrast, it is worth noting that Administrative Assistants for the State of Georgia start employment with an annual salary that is $934 higher than SSCM Associates.¹¹

CWLA Standards

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), founded in 1920, is the nation's oldest and largest membership-based child welfare organization, committed to engaging all Americans in promoting the well-being of children and protecting every child from harm. One of the goals of CWLA is to develop and disseminate practice standards as benchmarks for high-quality services that protect children and youths and strengthen families and neighborhoods.¹² With regard to caseload standards, CWLA asserts "[t]he safety and well-being of children and the ability of the agency to support families is dependent on social work staff having sufficient resources. The child protection agency should provide its social workers with resources, support staff, case consultation opportunities, and supervision sufficient to assure that they are to provide quality services and support families."¹³

Caseload Standards

The CWLA recommends that every agency conduct a workload analysis to determine the appropriate workload standards for its child protective services staff. Until an agency conducts such an analysis, the CWLA recommends that the following standards should be used:

• Initial assessments should involve no more than twelve active reports per month.

• Ongoing services to families opened for services and support after the assessment should involve no more than 17 active families, assuming the rate of new families assigned is no more than one for every six open families.

• Combined initial assessments and ongoing services to families should be no more than ten active ongoing families and no more than four active initial assessments.

• The workload of staff responsible for screening reports of abuse and neglect should be considered separately and staff allocated specifically to this function.

• Supervision in child protective services is critical to effective service delivery and staff and professional development. The ratio of social workers to supervisors should not exceed five to one.¹⁴

• CWLA also recommends that the majority of the caseworker's time should be spent in direct contact with families. Caseload size should allow the caseworker to spend enough time with families to help them achieve their goals within the time limitations of service.¹⁵

Workload Standards

• Workload standards developed for child protective services staff should be based on the tasks and activities expected within the child protection agency.¹⁶

• Workload standards should be established that make it possible for staff members to complete required tasks and activities. Once workload standards are established, the agency should advocate aggressively for the resources needed to meet those standards.¹⁷

• In developing agency workload standards, the agency should consider: the specific assigned functions and the time required for each task; the competencies needed for each social work function (knowledge, skills, experience); the time required for travel and other necessary but non-casework tasks; standards of sound practice; the availability of paraprofessionals and professionals from other services to assist with routine activities; the intensity of services that the agency and community consider appropriate; the number of other agencies, individuals, or services involved with the family and the amount of time needed to communicate effectively with other community partners, among other things.¹⁸

National Acceptance of CWLA Standards

The CWLA Benchmarks have been used nationwide in determining appropriate caseload standards for CPS workers. Here are a few examples of how other states have used the CWLA standards.

• Delaware: Legislation passed last year requiring Department of Services for Children, Youth and Families to project the number of child abuse and neglect cases and the number of child care facilities to be licensed and monitored. Based on this info, the General Assembly must fund sufficient positions to ensure that caseloads do not exceed by more than two those recommended by the CWLA.¹⁹

• Maryland: In its Child Welfare Workforce Initiative of 1998, the legislature mandated the development of appropriate caseload ratios using the CWLA's Maryland-specific recommendations. The legislation specified the legislature's "intention" that the Department of Human Resources hire enough caseworkers and casework supervisors to maintain the CWLA caseload ratios, but the law does not require it.²⁰

Georgia's Current Casework Guidelines

Georgia's Department of Family and Children Services is well aware of the efficacy of the CWLA standards. At least five official reports have been issued since 1989 recommending that Georgia add enough caseworkers to come into compliance with national caseload standards.²¹

DFCS is not only looking to reduce caseloads, but to effectively allocate workloads. DFCS has implemented Structured Decision Making to better manage cases at the intake and investigative stages, as well as ongoing cases. DFCS is using "proven, structured guidelines" to assess families and the degree of risk they pose to their children. Case managers are directed to look for a "specific set of circumstances" that indicate a family's need for ongoing services. By referring more non-abusive reports as a result of poverty to more appropriate agencies, caseloads and workloads are decreased within the agency.²²

Families where there is little or no safety risk, referred to as 'low risk,' are referred for voluntary services. A 'high' or 'moderate risk' is the rating assigned to "families who have severely harmed their children through physical or sexual violence or ongoing serious neglect."²³ Usually about 15 % of cases are in this category. For high risk cases, case managers are required to make three in-person visits and three contacts a month. For moderate risk cases, case managers have doubled services to a required two visits and two contacts per month. Low Risk cases include families whose primary problem is poverty and they are not investigated by the state (they are not an "open case" and they receive assistance through referral for voluntary services).²⁴ "Case managers are assigned cases based on the number of high-risk cases they have, instead of just because they are next in line. This distributes the work more evenly across staff so they can meet contact guidelines."²⁵

In both the CPS and foster care units in Georgia, a workload study has been completed so those units can move toward establishing workload guidelines and limits.²⁶ DHR's commitment to meeting the CWLA standards is demonstrated in its FY2002 budget request. The budget includes a proposal to add enough caseworkers and supervisors over a three-year period to bring caseloads and supervisor/staff ratios into compliance with the CWLA standards by FY2004 while allowing for a 10% annual turnover rate.

Benefits of Caseload and Workload Allocations

The Child Welfare League of America states, "higher caseloads result in poor quality casework, which results in higher levels of risk and a lesser likelihood of permanence for children."²⁷ This assertion is confirmed by independent and state studies. A 1998 study of New York's child welfare services found that high workload resulted in incomplete abuse and neglect investigations, an inability for workers to regularly monitor clients, and prolonged permanency decisions for children.²⁸ On the other hand, the Katz Study for Washington and Idaho (1990) showed that when caseloads were reduced to no more than ten children per worker, permanency for children was accomplished in a timely manner.²⁹ In 1994 the Institute for Family Self-Sufficiency found that the more contact a worker had with a client, the more successful workers were in reaching expected outcomes. Additional findings included that excessive caseloads decreased client interaction because workers were forced to become less proactive and more reactive, and staff with higher caseloads tended to cut corners and only nominally comply with responsibilities.³⁰

Increasing the salary of caseworkers and reducing turnover may actually result in monetary savings for Georgia because children will spend less time in foster care. Maintaining children in out-of-home placements is expensive. On any given day in Georgia, approximately 10,000 children are in foster care placements receiving a per diem. If each child were only receiving the basic per diem rate of $12.00 per day (and at least 12% of the foster care population resides in group homes and institutions), the annual cost is at least $43.8 million. This figure does not include costs for therapeutic foster care placements, health care, and all other costs associated with raising these children. A large part of these costs are reimbursed by federal dollars, but if Georgia is not in compliance with federal laws such as the Adoption and Safe Families Act, discussed below, then Georgia is at risk of losing large amounts of these federal dollars.³¹ Also, Georgia can be rewarded with federal dollars for increasing the number of adoptions. Georgia's Office of Adoptions has twice won a national Adoption 2002 Excellence Award. In 1998 Georgia was one of eights states to win this honor and in 2000 Georgia was one of twelve states to win this honor.

Studies have shown that smaller caseloads produce a more efficient workforce, which in turn means that children will be permanently placed much more quickly. Georgia should study the financial impact of increasing the number of caseworkers to move children out of foster care into permanent homes more quickly.

The following table presents the number of social service positions allocated as well as the rate of caseworker turnover for a few selected counties. In lieu of caseload statistics we have calculated the number of social service positions allocated per 100,000 children in the county. Note, for instance, that Bibb and Spalding counties have 5 times as many positions allocated per 100,000 children as Walton county.

ALLOCATION AND TURNOVER RATES, FY99

County	1999 Child Population32	Social Service Allocation33, 34	Social Service Allocation Per 100,000 Children	Caseworker Turnover35
Peach	8,135	7.25	89	100%
Henry	34,412	20.25	59	100%
Walton	18,199	5.50	30	83%
Sumter	10,437	10.50	101	80%
Muscogee	58,514	42.00	72	73%
Carroll	26,707	22.00	82	71%
Fulton	213,398	183.25	86	71%
Houston	33,566	25.00	74	60%
Cherokee	44,528	23.50	53	57%
Jefferson	5,920	6.25	106	50%
Bibb	45,793	69.75	152	42%
Spalding	17,875	28.00	157	33%
Douglas	28,563	21.50	75	33%
Dekalb	169,905	100.00	59	33%
Hall	40,540	27.75	68	31%
Chatham	67,485	52.25	77	31%
Effingham	13,004	9.00	69	29%
Lee	8,267	5.00	60	25%
Richmond	60,270	44.50	74	14%
Whitfield	26,624	20.25	76	13%
Troup	18,248	19.50	107	9%
Calhoun	1,583	2.25	142	0%
Dodge	5,291	7.75	146	0%
Harris	6,248	5.75	92	0%
Glynn	19,474	23.75	122	0%
Rockdale	21,232	11.25	53	0%