Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic Policy Paper

Appropriate Representation is Needed for Compliance With State and Federal Laws

In 1996 Georgia passed the first in a series of laws to reduce the amount of time children remain in foster care and to promote permanent placements for children. Georgia changed its laws in anticipation of the 1997 federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), which shifted the focus in child welfare policy away from family preservation and toward safety and permanence for children.

The new laws put considerable pressure on juvenile courts and DFCS to move children to permanent placements quickly. ASFA intends for children to remain in foster care no longer than twelve months. At the end of the twelve-month period a permanency hearing must be held to determine a permanent placement for the child. In Georgia, a juvenile court order giving custody to DFCS is only in effect for twelve months.⁴⁵ Before 1998 these orders were regularly extended as needed. In 1998 the Georgia Court of Appeals held that DFCS custody orders could only be extended once, because the legislative intent was that the child should be moved out of foster care in that time period. ⁴⁶ To circumvent this ruling, DFCS regularly files new deprivation petitions on behalf of children who have been in custody for twenty-four months.⁴⁷ While it may appear that this is being done to protect children from being returned to harmful situations, DFCS is supposed to be filing petitions for termination of parental rights on these children rather than starting new deprivation cases. The law requires DFCS to file a petition for termination of parental rights if a child has been in foster care for fifteen out of the most recent twenty-two months.⁴⁸ There are exceptions to this, such as when the child is placed with a relative by DFCS, when DFCS has not provided services that were deemed necessary for the safe return of the child, or when the case plan documents a compelling reason for determining that filing such a petition would not be in the best interests of the child.⁴⁹

In addition to creating a presumption that parental rights should be terminated when a child has been in DFCS custody for fifteen months, the new laws allow DFCS to file a petition for termination of parental rights at any point in a deprivation case, including when a child first comes into care, if certain circumstances exist.⁵⁰ These circumstances include a parent subjecting the child to aggravated circumstances including abandonment, torture, chronic abuse, and sexual abuse; murder or serious bodily injury of the child or a sibling; and involuntary termination of parental rights to another child.⁵¹

The new laws clearly provide legal mechanisms for children to be moved quickly into permanent homes. However, the median length of time children spent in foster care in FY99, 21.3 months⁵², shows that Georgia is not meeting the goal of moving children quickly into permanent homes. One reason is that Georgia does not have enough specially trained attorneys willing to represent the state in deprivation and termination of parental rights proceedings. Without attorneys, children's cases cannot be moved through the process in an appropriate and timely manner. The Attorney General's Office has allocated approximately 100 Special Assistant Attorney General (SAAG) positions to handle all court proceedings for the 19,000 children who were in foster care in FY1999. These attorneys are paid $45.00 per hour for their work and do not receive retirement, health coverage, vacation or other benefits. Out of this hourly rate they must pay overhead for an office, salaries of support staff, and all other expenses associated with being a private attorney. In 2000, forty-nine SAAGs doing this work resigned.⁵³

Deprivation cases require sophisticated legal skills and extensive courtroom experience. For example, SAAGs frequently call expert witnesses for medical testimony about shaken baby syndrome and battered child syndrome; cross-examine mental health experts on issues such as depression, battered woman syndrome, and substance abuse; and prepare complicated cases with little time for case preparation, often as few as ten days. The number of vacant SAAG positions indicates that experienced trial attorneys with the skills to move these complicated cases to permanency within twelve months are not financially able or willing to do this work at the current salary. The attorneys who do this work do so because they care about children. They constantly have to balance the work of clients paying market rate (upwards of $100 per hour) with what is essentially pro bono work, the representation of DFCS.

The Supreme Court guidelines for attorneys representing indigent criminal defendants set the minimum hourly rate at $55.00 per hour. SAAGs working for state agencies other than DFCS earn hourly rates ranging from $75 per hour for civil rights work to $105 per hour for road condemnations involving the Department of Transportation.⁵⁴ Based on the current legal market, attorneys with these skill levels should be paid at least $100 per hour for the handling deprivation and termination of parental rights cases.

Child Protective Services Task Force: Critical Areas of Concern⁵⁵

In carrying out their mandate to develop solutions to the crisis in the state's CPS system, the CPS Task Force held eleven community forums around the state of Georgia. The voices of over 1,200 participants are recorded in hundreds of pages of transcripts and the Task Force Report. Their collective voice spoke urgently about the current situation and the need to improve Georgia's CPS system before more children die. Some of the most pertinent information from the Task Force Report is summarized below.

• DFCS workers face low pay, no incentives for extra training, education, or for years of employment as well as inadequate compensation for long hours of work and being on-call. The report recommended moving to the same type of salary scale as educators and compensate for years of experience and education. Additionally, lower caseloads, increase the number of caseworkers per county, and create an on-call evenings and weekend position in each county to alleviate the grueling twenty-four hours per day / seven days per week on-call responsibilities of workers.

• Workers face inadequate training for decision-making that involves life and death decisions. Trainers should be experienced DFCS workers. Such training needs to be integrated into the existing degree programs. Additionally, internships should be developed for degree seeking individuals in social work and psychology programs.

• Lack of professional advancement opportunities, adequate compensation, rewards or educational incentives.

• The workload and job demands put the families of DFCS workers at risk of neglecting their own children and families.

At each public forum participants were asked to complete a survey about the issues facing DFCS and possible improvements that should be made. The survey results regarding the primary contributor to the current problems and changes that should be made are noted below, listed in the order of priority given by respondents in terms of areas in need of improvement. Overall, respondents ranked training as the highest priority, with hiring as the second highest priority, and accountability as the third highest priority.

1. Caseloads (30% response) were viewed as the primary contributor to the current problems in Georgia's CPS system, followed by DFCS (18% response), the legislature (16% response), and low caseworker salaries (14% response).

2. The following changes were recommended to improve the statewide CPS system in order to better protect children in their community and throughout the state: fund salaries (27% response), provide better training (20% response) and reduce caseloads (16% response).

Workplace Environment

Among the concerns most often voiced by participants in the Task Force hearings were the poor working conditions and enormous responsibilities placed on DFCS caseworkers. Hundreds of people said that the work environment must be improved to encourage longevity, professional growth and reduce high rates of turnover.⁵⁶

High worker turnover rates are expensive in any organization. First of all, there are administrative costs that are necessary to process employees as they leave the organization. Secondly, there are costs that must be incurred to find replacement workers. Finally, there are costs of training the new workers to fill the vacated positions.⁵⁷ Turnover is even more detrimental in agencies such as DFCS, where the "productive capacity" of the organization is in the employees' knowledge, skills, and abilities.⁵⁸ There is a strong link in CPS between the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the employees and the final product.⁵⁹ Because the skill and knowledge of employees in the CPS area is so important, a turnover rate higher than 20 % should be considered a threat to the agency's effectiveness.⁶⁰

Since turnover rates are so high in Georgia's Child Protection system, any plan to hire new workers should include a corresponding plan for long-term retention of the caseworkers. As reported to the Child Protective Services Task Force, presently DFCS workers work long hours, are often on-call twenty-four hours each day and seven days a week, the stress level is high, there are long hours of driving time, the workers lack support services, the workers are at risk for assault, there are poor communication methods, life and death decisions are made without workers having adequate resources to carry them out, and there is a lack of a unified approach to services, and decisions between DFCS, the Court System, and Law Enforcement.⁶¹ In addition, DFCS workers are paid very little, receive no incentives for extra training, education, or years of employment, and receive no compensation for long hours of work and being on-call.⁶²

Based on input from citizens and the work of numerous experts, the Child Protective Services Task Force ("Task Force") identified the following resource requests and training recommendations that will assist to improve worker morale within DFCS.⁶³

Each request reflects the goal of preventing burnout among social workers. Burnout is caused by factors such as excessively high caseloads, lack of the necessary tools to do the job, and lack of time to take "emotional breathers."⁶⁴ Marie and Bjorn Soderfeldt, in their review of literature regarding burnout among social workers, described ways to prevent worker burn out such as, providing a supportive environment, creating low work pressure, and increasing financial resources.⁶⁵

The Task Force Report included the following recommendations:

Resources⁶⁶

• Provide a separate staff position for on-call evenings and weekends to alleviate burden on individual workers all of who take twenty-four hour call.

• Establish and implement a statewide and/or regional child abuse reporting system through 1-800 number that:

• Requires highly trained and certified staff to receive these calls and make initial assessment based on standardized criteria;

• Ensures that the reporting system is adequately connected to local response personnel;

• Ensures timely responses; and

• Responds effectively to all concerns about the safety of children even if the report does not meet criteria for DFCS involvement, by making appropriate referrals to community agencies.

• Provide safety equipment for the job: two-way radio, cell phones, law enforcement backup, cameras, shared information about families who have received services.

• Provide avenues through which caseworkers can progress and be promoted.

• Establish and require a certification program so that workers who go through training receive certification.

Training⁶⁷

• Training should include how to deal with job stress, burnout, compassion fatigue, and interference with one's own family and quality of life.

• Trainers should be experienced DFCS workers.

• Training should be incorporated into degree programs at Georgia universities.

• Training should count toward a degree.

• Courses taken toward a degree should count toward training credit.

• Children's Protective Services should partner with Georgia colleges and universities to train workers within the school setting to a higher degree of compatibility with the reality of practice.

• Training should include forensic training for recognition of injuries.

• Training should be both didactic and experiential. It should prepare workers with adequate theory and for face-to-face interaction with clients, to testify in court, etc.⁶⁸

Unchanging, Committed Leadership

As previously discussed, the working conditions at DFCS have deteriorated over the last ten years. The CPS Task Force pointed out that without a strong champion and committed leadership, their report will be ignored in the same manner as the six previous reports listing the same recommendations, and conditions will further deteriorate. They point out that it is not surprising that significant gains have not been made in the last ten years because there was a severe lack of appropriate, effective leadership.⁶⁹ In the past ten years there have been four DHR Commissioners and five DFCS Directors. With leadership turning over every two to four years there cannot be commitment, championship, and a long-range vision of excellence.

To perform at high levels employees must have pride in their organization and enthusiasm for its works.⁷⁰ These qualities simply do not exist throughout DFCS. While low morale among DFCS workers has been documented over the last eleven years, today morale has reached an all-time low. Hundreds of people sent letters to the CPS Task Force or gave personal testimony at Task Force public hearings documenting the high stress, poor work conditions, and extremely low morale among DFCS caseworkers. Caseworkers feel that they are asked to do impossible jobs with inadequate resources and little or no support from supervisors and upper-management. Caseworkers are personally liable for mistakes, but are not given the necessary tools to prevent errors. Stress and morale problems have pervaded DFCS for years. A 1989 series of articles in the Atlanta Journal Constitution examined the high stress and low morale experienced by DFCS workers.⁷¹ Additionally, a 1993 study of the CPS system documented the low morale among CPS workers.⁷²

Successful organizations, those with enthusiastic employees working toward excellence, have effective, committed, and generally consistent leadership. One description of a leader states, "The leader's role is to create a vision, not to kick somebody in the ass. The role of the leader is a servant's role. It's supporting his people, running interference for them. It's coming out with an atmosphere of understanding and trust--and love."⁷³ A leader is one who has a vision of where she will take the company, can dramatize that vision for the organization, and can communicate the work of the business simply and directly to everyone inside and outside the business. A leader is someone who is passionate about her work and inspires excellence in those who work with her. No one can be ordered to perform in an excellent fashion; "excellence, by its very definition and at all levels, is a purely voluntary commitment. It ensues only if the job is sincerely 'owned.'"⁷⁴ Leaders who stay in place long enough to know their workers, the jobs they do, and the tools they need to do them, can become the kind of leaders who will build DFCS into an organization that consistently succeeds in protecting children.

The lack of consistent DHR and DFCS leadership is illustrated by the following chronologies:

DHR Commissioners (complete history)

Commissioner's Name	From	To
J. Battle Hall	July 1972	October 1972
Richard M. Harden	October 1972	February 1975
T. M. (Jim) Parham	February 1975	January 1977
W. Douglas Skelton, M.D.	January 1979	January 1980
Andy H. Carden	January 1980	March 1980
Joseph N. Edwards, Ph.D.	March 1980	June 1982
James G. Ledbetter, Ph.D.	June 1982	December 1994
Tommy C. Olmstead	January 1995	July 1999
Audrey W. Horne	July 1999	December 2000
Gary Redding, (Acting Interim)	December 2000	present

State DFCS Directors (years of service are approximate)

Director's Name	From	To
Patricia Johnson	1978	1984
Shirley Tate	1984	1986
Doug Greenwell	1986	1993
Ann Plant	1993	1995
Michael Thurmond	1995	1997/8
Peg Peters	1997/8	1999
Juanita Blount-Clark	November 1999	present