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Chaos at DHS: "Child Protective Services" A panel offers reformsuggestions, but officials remain in policy limbo.
Chaos at DHS A panel offers reform suggestions, but officials remain in policy limbo. by Doron Taussig http://www.citypaper.net/articles/20...4/chaos-at-dhs Published: Jun 12, 2007 On June 5, four days after the mayor's Child Welfare Review Panel released its much-anticipated report on conditions at the Department of Human Services, the staff at DHS was buzzing from a cocktail of anxiety and anger — but not because of the big publication. Rather, social workers were upset about rumors of disciplinary actions about to be dished out by Commissioner Arthur Evans. The previous week, 9-month-old Seaser Tiller had drowned in a bathtub when his mother left him to check her e-mail. Tiller's family had been on active DHS oversight, and when word came down that the supervisor involved with the case was retiring, and disciplinary action was being initiated against the administrator and director, it sent a tremor of worry through the office. With workers on edge, representatives from AFSCME District Council 47, the union that represents DHS, spent the day walking around the department's headquarters at 1515 Arch St., trying to ease the tension. PAID ADVERTISEMENT "I told people I know that they heard [people got fired], but it was not accurate," says Rita Urwitz, the representative for DHS supervisors. She reminded them that there is a formal disciplinary process that has to be followed before someone is fired from DHS. After she'd calmed someone down, Urwitz would try to shift his or her attention away from the disciplinary action — which affected a few ranking people at DHS — and back to the thing that could change the very essence of the agency: the CWRP report. The nine-member CWRP, which was filled with both local and national child-welfare experts, was established by Mayor Street after the Inquirer ran a series of articles highlighting cases in which children under DHS care had died, and scrutinizing the agency's practices. Street also asked for the resignation of popular DHS Commissioner Cheryl Ransom-Garner. In the immediate aftermath, conditions at the department threatened to actually get worse: Workers were demoralized and the rate of children being put in "placement" (foster homes, group homes or kinship care) spiked dramatically, signaling that children were being placed out of a sense of panic, rather than good practice. But there was still hope around the child-welfare community that the Inquirer's series would, in time, lead to smart, lasting reforms. The main vessel of that hope was the mayor's panel. The panel reviewed 52 cases in which children under DHS care died between 2001 and 2006, and conducted interviews with many DHS staff and stakeholders. Its report, entitled "The Call to Action," is unequivocal in its view that DHS, as an organization, is not fulfilling its mission. It calls DHS a "stressed organization," and notes that, since Philadelphia is better-financed than most child welfare agencies, the problem is not a lack of money. One of the report's central critiques is that DHS has lost sight of its core mission: ensuring the safety of children. The department has become the "agency of last resort" among the city's social services, the panel noted, and as a result, it takes on tasks and cases involving all sorts of problems — housing, mental health — that don't necessarily threaten a child's well-being. This extra work diverts resources and muddies the workers' vision of what they should be doing. To address this problem, the panel recommended the agency rewrite its mission statement, and change its procedures to reflect its original priorities. If a report of abuse or neglect comes in about any child 5 years old or younger (the most vulnerable population), the panel said, DHS should visit that child within two hours. At present, the majority of such children are visited within 24 hours. The panel also lamented what it called a "theme of randomness" in how DHS assesses and addresses its cases: Workers often go with their guts, rather than making determinations based on statistical risk factors. To this end, the CWRP called on DHS to institute a "safety assessment tool," a standard questionnaire all investigators would use to assess the risk level of a child's situation. There was much more to the report, of course, including recommendations about monitoring outside agencies and a recognition of the stressful, dangerous work social workers do. But the big take-away message seemed to be: DHS needs to narrow its focus, and be more thorough and methodical with what it focuses on. Response to the report from stakeholders and experts has been mixed, though tilting toward the positive. Commissioner Evans has embraced the whole thing unhesitatingly, noting that the department has already begun work on 21 of the panel's 31 recommendations. His attempt to heed the panel's advice may even have been too eager: The commissioner initially wanted to issue a directive telling workers not to accept cases that didn't meet the state standard for child protective service. But the state's definition has some big loopholes. If, for instance, someone abusing a child doesn't live in the child's home, you can arrest that person, but you can't technically confirm a child-abuse allegation. Learning this, Evans amended his plans, leaving room for cases with clear risk factors. The rank and file has expressed more trepidation. Staffers familiar with the contents of the CWRP report (it is available online at www.philadelphiacwrp.org, but has not been distributed) tend to worry about the two-hour visitation deadline for young children, whether it's realistic, and how much harder it will make their lives. What reservations workers have, though, will likely be mollified by the fact that their union reps are pleased with the report, and are speaking out in its favor. Both Urwitz and her union colleague Kahim Boles have used the word "great" to describe the panel's work. They found promising the report's suggestion that social workers have too much redundant paperwork; the procedural recommendations, they felt, were right on-point as well. The only loud concerns about the report have come from advocates of parents' rights. Though the CWRP did not express an opinion as to the circumstances under which the government should take a child from parents, many people assume that "child safety" means "child removal," says Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. (Wexler's organization believes children should only be removed under the most extreme circumstances, and that "family preservation services" should be used to keep families together as often as possible.) Because the CWRP report did not explain that safety can sometimes be achieved without breaking apart a family, Wexler worries that the spike in placements that followed the Inquirer series this winter will resume. (In 2007, the number of placements have returned to almost pre-Inquirer levels.) Still, Wexler and other parent advocates actually like the CWRP's recommendations. Katherine Gomez of Philadelphia's Community Legal Services says she hopes that by decreasing random decision-making, DHS will reduce the number of parents who have their children unnecessarily removed. Indeed, most everyone seems to think that the general gist of the report's analysis is correct. That's not to say improvement is guaranteed. But it begs the question: If everyone in Philadelphia child welfare agrees on the major flaws in the system, why did it take several tragic deaths, a muckraking series from the Inquirer, and a huge shake up that threw the system into disarray to bring about a movement toward reform? Faced with this, experts tend to point out that, even in other jurisdictions, child welfare agencies have needed to see some threat before changing course. "This is a bureaucracy," says Boles, of the social workers' union. "Bureaucracies get caught in a groove. And everybody's screaming, 'Turn! Make a turn!' And it doesn't happen." CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAM.... CPS Does not protect children... It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even killed at the hands of Child Protective Services. every parent should read this .pdf from connecticut dcf watch... http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US These numbers come from The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN) Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS *Perpetrators of Maltreatment* Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59 Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13 Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241 Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12 Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5 Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per 100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a bunch of social workers. BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION... |
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Chaos at DHS: "Child Protective Services" A panel offers reformsuggestions, but officials remain in policy limbo.
fx wrote:
You'd think after 3 decades of ridiculous excuses for their incompetence, someone would get a clue. Hold caseworkers responsible for the horrible abuse they heap on innocent families - make them pay for their crimes against family instead of listening to their sorry ass excuses year after year, decade after decade. Today, 38% of children torn from their familys have not been abused or neglected, and are not t risk of abuse or neglect. They go to foster hell for one reason and one reason only -- to enrich CPS cronies like Don/Kane/d'geezer. There's hardly any lower scum. ========================= Chaos at DHS A panel offers reform suggestions, but officials remain in policy limbo. by Doron Taussig http://www.citypaper.net/articles/20...4/chaos-at-dhs Published: Jun 12, 2007 On June 5, four days after the mayor's Child Welfare Review Panel released its much-anticipated report on conditions at the Department of Human Services, the staff at DHS was buzzing from a cocktail of anxiety and anger — but not because of the big publication. Rather, social workers were upset about rumors of disciplinary actions about to be dished out by Commissioner Arthur Evans. The previous week, 9-month-old Seaser Tiller had drowned in a bathtub when his mother left him to check her e-mail. Tiller's family had been on active DHS oversight, and when word came down that the supervisor involved with the case was retiring, and disciplinary action was being initiated against the administrator and director, it sent a tremor of worry through the office. With workers on edge, representatives from AFSCME District Council 47, the union that represents DHS, spent the day walking around the department's headquarters at 1515 Arch St., trying to ease the tension. PAID ADVERTISEMENT "I told people I know that they heard [people got fired], but it was not accurate," says Rita Urwitz, the representative for DHS supervisors. She reminded them that there is a formal disciplinary process that has to be followed before someone is fired from DHS. After she'd calmed someone down, Urwitz would try to shift his or her attention away from the disciplinary action — which affected a few ranking people at DHS — and back to the thing that could change the very essence of the agency: the CWRP report. The nine-member CWRP, which was filled with both local and national child-welfare experts, was established by Mayor Street after the Inquirer ran a series of articles highlighting cases in which children under DHS care had died, and scrutinizing the agency's practices. Street also asked for the resignation of popular DHS Commissioner Cheryl Ransom-Garner. In the immediate aftermath, conditions at the department threatened to actually get worse: Workers were demoralized and the rate of children being put in "placement" (foster homes, group homes or kinship care) spiked dramatically, signaling that children were being placed out of a sense of panic, rather than good practice. But there was still hope around the child-welfare community that the Inquirer's series would, in time, lead to smart, lasting reforms. The main vessel of that hope was the mayor's panel. The panel reviewed 52 cases in which children under DHS care died between 2001 and 2006, and conducted interviews with many DHS staff and stakeholders. Its report, entitled "The Call to Action," is unequivocal in its view that DHS, as an organization, is not fulfilling its mission. It calls DHS a "stressed organization," and notes that, since Philadelphia is better-financed than most child welfare agencies, the problem is not a lack of money. One of the report's central critiques is that DHS has lost sight of its core mission: ensuring the safety of children. The department has become the "agency of last resort" among the city's social services, the panel noted, and as a result, it takes on tasks and cases involving all sorts of problems — housing, mental health — that don't necessarily threaten a child's well-being. This extra work diverts resources and muddies the workers' vision of what they should be doing. To address this problem, the panel recommended the agency rewrite its mission statement, and change its procedures to reflect its original priorities. If a report of abuse or neglect comes in about any child 5 years old or younger (the most vulnerable population), the panel said, DHS should visit that child within two hours. At present, the majority of such children are visited within 24 hours. The panel also lamented what it called a "theme of randomness" in how DHS assesses and addresses its cases: Workers often go with their guts, rather than making determinations based on statistical risk factors. To this end, the CWRP called on DHS to institute a "safety assessment tool," a standard questionnaire all investigators would use to assess the risk level of a child's situation. There was much more to the report, of course, including recommendations about monitoring outside agencies and a recognition of the stressful, dangerous work social workers do. But the big take-away message seemed to be: DHS needs to narrow its focus, and be more thorough and methodical with what it focuses on. Response to the report from stakeholders and experts has been mixed, though tilting toward the positive. Commissioner Evans has embraced the whole thing unhesitatingly, noting that the department has already begun work on 21 of the panel's 31 recommendations. His attempt to heed the panel's advice may even have been too eager: The commissioner initially wanted to issue a directive telling workers not to accept cases that didn't meet the state standard for child protective service. But the state's definition has some big loopholes. If, for instance, someone abusing a child doesn't live in the child's home, you can arrest that person, but you can't technically confirm a child-abuse allegation. Learning this, Evans amended his plans, leaving room for cases with clear risk factors. The rank and file has expressed more trepidation. Staffers familiar with the contents of the CWRP report (it is available online at www.philadelphiacwrp.org, but has not been distributed) tend to worry about the two-hour visitation deadline for young children, whether it's realistic, and how much harder it will make their lives. What reservations workers have, though, will likely be mollified by the fact that their union reps are pleased with the report, and are speaking out in its favor. Both Urwitz and her union colleague Kahim Boles have used the word "great" to describe the panel's work. They found promising the report's suggestion that social workers have too much redundant paperwork; the procedural recommendations, they felt, were right on-point as well. The only loud concerns about the report have come from advocates of parents' rights. Though the CWRP did not express an opinion as to the circumstances under which the government should take a child from parents, many people assume that "child safety" means "child removal," says Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. (Wexler's organization believes children should only be removed under the most extreme circumstances, and that "family preservation services" should be used to keep families together as often as possible.) Because the CWRP report did not explain that safety can sometimes be achieved without breaking apart a family, Wexler worries that the spike in placements that followed the Inquirer series this winter will resume. (In 2007, the number of placements have returned to almost pre-Inquirer levels.) Still, Wexler and other parent advocates actually like the CWRP's recommendations. Katherine Gomez of Philadelphia's Community Legal Services says she hopes that by decreasing random decision-making, DHS will reduce the number of parents who have their children unnecessarily removed. Indeed, most everyone seems to think that the general gist of the report's analysis is correct. That's not to say improvement is guaranteed. But it begs the question: If everyone in Philadelphia child welfare agrees on the major flaws in the system, why did it take several tragic deaths, a muckraking series from the Inquirer, and a huge shake up that threw the system into disarray to bring about a movement toward reform? Faced with this, experts tend to point out that, even in other jurisdictions, child welfare agencies have needed to see some threat before changing course. "This is a bureaucracy," says Boles, of the social workers' union. "Bureaucracies get caught in a groove. And everybody's screaming, 'Turn! Make a turn!' And it doesn't happen." CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAM.... CPS Does not protect children... It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even killed at the hands of Child Protective Services. every parent should read this .pdf from connecticut dcf watch... http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US These numbers come from The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN) Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS *Perpetrators of Maltreatment* Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59 Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13 Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241 Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12 Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5 Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per 100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a bunch of social workers. BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION... -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com |
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