ACS Struggling On Child Abuse Despite Reforms;
Repeat Cases Rise; Union: Attrition Is Key Factor

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

The city's child welfare agency has failed to make progress in protecting children from abuse and neglect by several measures, despite having implemented important reforms and strengthened its infrastructure, according to a report released last week.

'STATS HURTING SERVICE': Local 371 Vice President Faye Moore contends that the emphasis on statistics and deadlines at the Administration for Children's Services has come at the expense of quality of care, in the process leading many staffers to leave the agency.

Union officials who represent the caseworkers agreed that the foster-care system needed fundamental improvements, but argued that the report fell short because of its authors' failure to speak to any of the front-line workers who handle abuse cases.

Workers Overburdened

The study, performed by the nonprofit group Children's Rights, praises the Administration for Children's Services for improving its timeliness investigating abuse accusations, but it slams the agency for a rise in the number of repeat abuse cases, switching children's foster homes too frequently and not relieving overloaded caseworkers.

ACS officials did not dispute most of the data, but asserted that the report drew "overly simplistic conclusions" that did not reflect improvements over the past decade.

The report noted that the percentage of children who were abused or neglected and then abused or neglected again within a year grew from 9.3 percent in 2000-2001 to 14.8 percent in 2005-2006.

"We do not have a definite answer on why this re-abuse number has risen, slightly," ACS spokeswoman Sharman Stein stated in an e-mail. "But we think that one explanation may be that with all of the media attention following the death of Nixzmary Brown [who was murdered last year, allegedly by her step-father], as well as considerable efforts on our part to emphasize the need to report, people have become very attentive to possible abuse and neglect situations, and have been more likely to report them."

Abuse Reports Up 30%

Last year, reports of abuse climbed 30 percent, to about 68,000.

Union officials said that multiple reorganizations since the death of the 7-year-old Nixzmary had put an emphasis on the agency's investigative arm, leaving preventive-services caseworkers with "astronomical" caseloads.

"This agency constantly tries to fix problems by focusing on one point of service," said District Council 37 Local 371 Vice President Faye Moore, who represents the caseworkers. "The best way is to look at it is globally. If you put all the focus on child protection, something will suffer."

The report places front-line investigative workers' caseloads at 12, but union officials said that if the authors had spoken to the workers, they would have found that many of them are still handling caseloads of up to 20. ACS officials put that number at 12.6.

Julie Farber, the director of policy at Children's Rights, said that her group had interviewed union officials about numerous issues, including foster-care policies, training and salaries. "Supporting the child welfare work force is one of the most critical pieces of having a working system," she said.

Heavy Foster Caseloads

The report also noted that the foster-care caseload is about 22 to 24 - twice the national standard - and staff turnover rates are 40 percent. ACS officials said that number is carried by the nonprofit agencies, which contract with the city to oversee foster care. "It isn't under our direct control," stated Ms. Stein. "We are aware of this issue, however, and our new funding initiatives should help to reduce foster-care agency caseloads."

Ms. Moore said that the agency had "gotten out of the business of foster care" by using private contractors and argued that it should still be responsible for the overall caseload, since it affects quality of care.

The former union caseworker also argued that the attrition rate of 40 percent noted by the report was a result of large caseloads and pressure to meet rigid deadlines, at the expense of service. "Any time you focus so intensely on stats," she said, "service gets damaged. If you are working in a climate where all anyone cares about is deadlines, the deadlines become more important than the services." She argued that different cases required different responses, which in turn required different amounts of time.

Tout Improvements

Meanwhile, ACS credits its weekly Childstat sessions, where detailed statistics of the foster-care system are discussed, for some of the improvements noted by the report. Bright spots in the system, according to the study, included fewer cases closed without being investigated, quicker abuse investigations and more visits between parents and their children who are in foster care. ACS officials also asserted that better training and supervision of its front-line workers has led to the improvements.

Children's advocates argue that maximum stability for foster children is crucial, and the report's authors are critical of the fact that the number of children who switched foster homes at least once within a year rose from 21 percent in 2001 to 31 percent in 2006. ACS emphasized that its foster parents support initiative had already decreased the number for the first half of Fiscal Year 2007 to 16.7 percent, down from 20.4 percent in 2006 and 22.2 percent the previous year.

The report also criticized the increase in the percentage of children living in group homes, which grew from 12 percent in 1999 to 18 percent in 2006. "The age of children in foster care has definitely risen - and it's much harder to find foster families for older children," stated Ms. Stein, "although we're working very hard to do so and are having success."

Fewer in Foster Care

The report noted that the number of children overall in the foster-care system has plummeted, from 38,000 in 1999 to 17,000 in 2006. ACS officials explained that trend as a result of the easing of the crack epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the number of foster-care children reached an all-time high of almost 50,000.

Ms. Moore argued that lower caseloads would go a long way to improving outcomes and acknowledged that the agency had been hiring additional caseworkers. But she asserted that until the culture inside the agency changed, the attrition rate would continue to undermine potential improvements.

"You lower caseloads not by hiring," she asserted, "but by retaining. When workers have a reasonable caseload, and 12 is a good number, they feel like they are really servicing their clients properly, and then they'll want to stay."