Glass is always half-empty for CPS

E.J. Montini Republic columnist Jun. 24, 2003 12:00 AM

It's grotesque to admit it, but it's true. In the story of three
abused children, two of them dead, there is good news. We didn't see
it because of the horror, but beneath the allegations of negligence or
incompetence inside the state's Child Protective Services, there is
reason for optimism. And there is proof, simple mathematical proof,
that CPS is made up mostly of men and women doing what the Sisters of
St. Joseph used to call "God's work" for no money, no respect and -
when everything goes perfectly - no recognition.

Over the weekend, The Republic's Karina Bland reported that three of
the worst and most highly publicized recent instances of child abuse
were supervised by the same person at CPS. The woman and her boss have
been suspended.

The cases involved a 7-year-old boy who had been starved and kept in a
closet by his sadistic parents while supposedly under scrutiny by CPS;
a
10-day-old baby who wasn't removed from an addictive mother by CPS and
who died of exposure to crack cocaine; and a 20-month-old girl beaten
to death by her mother's abusive boyfriend even after reports had been
received about his behavior.

By themselves, the numbers are nauseating. Two kids dead. One wickedly
abused. But there are other numbers. In Maricopa County alone,
caseworkers are said to have investigated more than 16,000 cases of
alleged abuse last year.

Investigators average 15 cases a month. Every couple of days a
caseworker is faced with a potential life-and-death decision about a
child's welfare, a family's future. Imagine the houses they walk into.
Imagine the people who confront them. Imagine the questions they must
answer and the unreasonably brief time they have to answer them. In
order to do such a job, a person most likely will have had to attend
college and graduate school. And for the work of trying to protect
society's most precious resource - our children - the starting pay for
a caseworker with a master's degree is $26,526 a year. Add in the
stress and the long hours, and it's easy to see why there's nearly a
30 percent turnover rate. And yet, most of the time, CPS manages to do
the right thing.

"I understand that the public would be outraged by the death of any
child," a young CPS worker told me Monday. "But the level of animosity
for CPS in this state is, I think, ridiculously high. And I think the
media contributes to that a lot. I've gotten to the point where I just
tell people that I work for 'the state' when they ask me about my job.
Because I know if I said CPS, they would give me this look. You know?
Most of the people I work with really care about what they do. But
we're not saints. Sometimes mistakes are made."

She's not supposed to talk to reporters about her work and asked that
her name not appear in print. Besides, she said, she probably won't be
with the agency for long. It's getting to her.

This makes her easy to write off. After all, nobody forces a person to
take a job in social services, right? Don't they know the pay is lousy
going in? Don't they know there will be stress? Don't they know
they'll be dealing with society's most difficult problems day in and
day out?

I figure they do. I figure that accounts for the fact that even with
all the turmoil and the turnover, the percentage of cases that go well
is very high. And I figure that since everyone from the governor on
down has something critical to say about CPS, the agency's
performance, its highly publicized failures and its need for reform
that I should take the opportunity to add in my two cents. With all
the criticism out there, I believe there remains one thing that needs
to be said to the CPS workers who sometimes totally botch a job the
rest of us wouldn't take for a million dollars: thanks.