Workplace Supports to Improve Georgia's Child Protective Services

I. Current Status of Georgia's Child Welfare System

1. Purpose of Paper

   The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss successful strategies for implementing the recommendations of the April 2000 Governor's Child Protective Services (CPS) Task Force report and the Georgia Department of Human Resources Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) plan for child welfare reform, Safe Futures for Georgia's Children.^[1]  The paper provides an overview of some of the many programs and workplace supports implemented elsewhere to enhance longevity and job satisfaction for child welfare workers.  It also provides research-based recommendations for improving the recruitment and retention of child welfare case managers in Georgia.

2. Recent Improvements and Momentum

   In March 2001, at the urging of the Governor, the General Assembly passed a budget package allocating an enhancement of $32 million in state funding for the child welfare system in state fiscal year 2002.^[2]  After years of budget cuts in DFCS, cuts that were approaching $100 million, the state provided the first installment of funding for a long-range plan to improve the child welfare system.^[3]

   One impetus for this budget allocation was the April 2000 report of the Governor's Child Protective Services Task Force (April 2000 Task Force Report), the latest in a number of reports issued over the last decade detailing the problems of Georgia's child welfare system and providing recommendations for addressing these problems.^[4]  The April 2000 Task Force Report identified the following critical workforce concerns:

   • DFCS workers receive low pay, no incentives for extra training, education, or years of employment, and inadequate compensation for long hours of work and being on-call;
   • Training inadequately prepares workers for life and death decision-making tasks;
   • Workers have inadequate opportunities for professional advancement within DFCS; and,
   • Heavy workloads and job demands, and inadequate compensation put DFCS workers at risk of neglecting their own children and families.^[5]

   
   Thirty-nine percent of DFCS workers left their jobs in fiscal year (FY) 1999 and 44% left their jobs in FY2000.  In some counties, including Fulton, the turnover rate reached over 70% in FY1999.^[6]  In response to this exodus, a large proportion of the $32 million budget increase for FY2002 was earmarked for increased case manager salaries and new positions to reduce swelling caseloads.  The Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic produced a policy paper in January 2001 that provided research support for these measures.^[7]

   However, higher salaries and lower caseloads will not remedy all of the workforce issues facing DFCS.  These measures are necessary to address the immediate crisis, but standing alone they will not sustain the institutional capacity DFCS needs to better protect children.  The April 2000 Task Force Report identified a number of other measures needed to develop a satisfied, stable, professional child welfare workforce:

   • Increase the number of case managers who have a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) or a Master of Social Work (MSW) degree;
   • Implement new training strategies for case managers;
   • Supply case managers with the technology they need to perform more efficiently;
   • Establish a statewide, integrated, comprehensive case management system; and
   • Implement programs to increase case manager morale and improve working conditions.^[8]

3. History of Recent Reform Proposals

   Since 1989, a number of commissions and task forces have produced reports for improving the child welfare system, with strikingly similar recommendations.

   The latest of these, the Governor's April 2000 Child Protective Services Task Force Report, said

   The state of Georgia must commit to a comprehensive effort to redesign and improve the delivery of its child welfare services for vulnerable children and families.  What that commitment entails is the State stepping up to be the reform champion of the child welfare system.  Creating effective child welfare services is difficult work in the best of circumstances.  Georgia faces the special challenge of improving a system where the demands upon it have far outstripped the system's resources, skills, and capacities.  Anything less than total commitment by state leaders -- to a visible, sustained change effort, guided by clear standards and heightened accountability -- will yield only incremental or partial change.

   As part of building community capacity, the state must enable the people who are at the heart of this work -- frontline child welfare workers and their supervisors.  Among the changes to be made, the most immediate and one of the most important is the development of the skills, knowledge, and judgment of the people who interact with families everyday.  Children's lives depend on the judgment of these workers.  The Task Force calls for a frontline revolution in the quality of the work provided by the child welfare system every day.^[9]

   The problems of case manager salaries and workloads, effective database systems, and training, among others, have been steadily worsening for more than a decade in Georgia.  The solutions recommended when the problems were first identified in the late 1980s were less expansive and less expensive than those needed now.  The following are some of the calls for reform that have been issued over the last decade.

   • In August of 1989, the Child Protection in Georgia report was released which gave an overview of the CPS system in Georgia.  CPS workers around Georgia reported that their biggest problems were being underpaid, overworked, and under-trained.  The report recommended that the state increase the number of CPS workers in order to meet national standards and prevent an increase in caseloads.^[10]
   • In January of 1993 the System Review of Child Protective Services of the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services compared Georgia's CPS system with national guidelines and standards.  The recommendations were to develop and implement a training program for CPS, develop a plan for the design of workload standards, and formalize and enhance internal support systems to offer additional benefits and incentives for staff.^[11]
   • In December of 1993 the State Senate released the Report of the Senate Study Committee on Children at Risk.  The study identified problems facing Georgia's at-risk children; discussed where the child protective, educational, judicial, and law enforcement systems are weak; and recommended solutions to the problems facing Georgia's at-risk children. The report recommended that Georgia fund an additional 443 CPS workers and 1,277 Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Food Stamp workers to meet national standards.^[12]
   • The Child Placement Project Final Report, presented to the Georgia Supreme Court in October 1996 by the Georgia Supreme Court Administrative Office of the Courts, assessed court proceedings involving abused, neglected, and deprived children as they moved through the juvenile courts.  The report recommended developing and implementing improved, uniform methods of record-keeping and case management in DFCS and in the court system; increasing education and training of all participants including DFCS case managers; and providing cross-training for all persons working with juvenile court cases.^[13]
   • The Report of the Senate Study Committee on State Foster Care and Adoption, released in December 1996, outlined ways to move toward permanent settings for children in DFCS custody, strengthen DFCS, and use private agencies as partners in child welfare activities.  The report recommended reducing caseloads to thirty cases per case manager by 1997 and twenty by 1999.^[14]
   • A PeachPrint for Georgia: Recommendations for Reform and to Reduce Child Abuse, recommends strengthening the full continuum of care for children, including child abuse prevention programs, treatment and intervention services, the child welfare system, and the criminal justice system.^[15]  This compilation of recommendations includes strategies to address the failing child welfare system, along with a variety of measures to address other aspects of child well-being. Some of the recommendations for DFCS include: recruit and retain an appropriately qualified, competent, and stable workforce; increase the number of BSW and MSW level social workers; establish minimum job competency levels and provide ongoing training to ensure attainment of these competencies; develop a system to deal with the problems of staff shortages and high turnover rates.^[16]

   
   These reports consistently highlight that Georgia's child welfare system is and has been severely understaffed, and that the system needs additional training, salary increases, and many other job supports in order to have a stable, effective child protection workforce.  Now that the state has committed to provide some of the needed financial resources,^[17] implementation of recommended changes can begin.  The following recommendations identify and discuss some support options, in addition to salary increases and caseload reductions, that DFCS could use to help case managers do a better job protecting abused and neglected children.