MAKING ACS STAFF TOUGHER

Making ACS Staff Tougher

It turns out that the failures of the Administration for Children's Services staffers who were involved in the Nixzmary Brown case - in which a 7-year-old girl was murdered last year, allegedly by her stepfather - were a microcosm of the agency's problems in handling abuse cases.

The Department of Investigation, which probed the agency following Nixzmary's death, focused on 11 child deaths and one near-fatality, all involving families which, like Nixzmary's, were under ACS's scrutiny because of past problems.

Among the principal findings was that Caseworkers gave too much credence to the stories or excuses given by parents who, either because of past behavior or the flimsiness of their tales, should not have been trusted. DOI also found that some Caseworkers didn't obtain important documents or failed to interview neighbors about whether they had seen signs of abuse.

As we noted last year regarding Nixzmary's case, one of the problems is that some Caseworkers need to be more like cops, both in terms of asserting their authority and being skeptical when parents are evasive. The changes recommended by DOI are not going to turn Caseworkers into police officers - they will neither carry guns nor have the right to make arrests or conduct searches. They are, however, likely to prompt the Caseworkers to act more aggressively in behalf of the children when there is reason to believe they are being abused in their homes.

ACS is in the process of hiring 100 more investigative consultants - five times the number it presently has. Those employees have law-enforcement backgrounds - much of the current staff consists of retired cops - and the experience to sense when parents' behavior is suspicious enough to warrant action.

Faye Moore, who as a vice president of Social Service Employees Local 371 of District Council 37 represents the child-abuse Caseworkers, made a valid point about the need to reduce workloads to give staff enough time to focus on individual cases. She also took issue with DOI's findings and noted that if Caseworkers are not sufficiently trained, it is because ACS Commissioner John Mattingly cut their instructional time from 90 days to six weeks in order to get more personnel on the streets following Nixzmary's death 19 months ago.

But that would not have been an issue in virtually all the cases DOI examined. It is unfair to be overly harsh toward the Caseworkers, who do a difficult, stressful job that forces them to deal with problem families, often in the city's most-dangerous neighborhoods. But they are not doing that job properly if they let themselves be conned or intimidated by those they are supposed to be monitoring.

Getting the counsel of law-enforcement professionals will make them more alert to situations that require immediate intervention. It is also more likely to lead them to summon the police in situations where they believe confronting parents will place themselves in jeopardy.

The urgency of taking such action was dramatized on the same day that DOI released its report, when 21-month-old Hailey Gonzalez was hospitalized, reportedly in grave condition, because of alleged abuse by her mother's boyfriend. The girl's father was already in prison for abusing her, bringing the family to ACS's attention.

Developing more of a law-enforcement mentality in the agency is the first step toward minimizing the recurrence of such horrors.