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reprint or license thisCHANGING TIMES AT DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES
Extra funds set to fortify child welfare
Unprecedented budget increase lifts hopes at DSS
By Issac J. Bailey
The Sun News
After years of budget cuts and low national rankings, the S.C. Department of Social Services is poised to receive its largest one-year budget increase in the agency's history, a move that officials say will fuel a turnaround for the department charged with ensuring the safety of the state's most vulnerable residents - its children.
"For the first time since I've been here, I feel optimistic," said DSS state director Kim Aydlette, state director since 2003. "But we have a lot of work to do in child welfare. And I would not sit here and tell you we are at nirvana."
A $14.3 million increase in the agency's budget for the 2006-07 fiscal year will add 350 new permanent child welfare workers, restore the foster care board rate, provide matching funds for some group homes and emergency shelters, and partially fund a projected adoptions subsidy deficit, DSS officials said.
If all goes well, South Carolina will become one of a few - or maybe the only - states in the nation with the average of 12 cases per foster care worker recommended by the Child Welfare League of America. Some workers have as many as three times that number today.
"It not only puts us back in child welfare where we were, it moves us way ahead," Aydlette said. "Everybody understood that we've got to invest in shoring up the program. Child welfare was definitely in the greatest need."
After failing several measures on a national audit in 2003, DSS met 20 out of 23 performance indicators and all national standards this year on a "Program Improvement Plan," according to the Administration for Children and Families. DSS has until next summer to improve on the three performance indicators it didn't meet. The agency must do a better job visiting with parents and siblings in care, preserving family connections and improving the relationship of children in care with their parents, according to that report.
Rep. Tracy Edge, R-Myrtle Beach, chairman of the House subcommittee on Health, Human Services, Medicaid and Environmental Control, which controls health-related funding, was instrumental in pushing through the funding request from Gov. Mark Sanford's office, Aydlette said.
The allocation marks the largest one-year funding increase ever for the agency, Edge said.
"I think [DSS] is getting back on sound footing," he said. "I'm hoping that within a year we are going to see an increase in efficiency and effectiveness. They have to prove themselves. There is accountability in the system."
DSS is trying to create a new intake computer system that will allow clients to get food stamps, Medicaid, child care and other services at one place.
A salary study is being conducted and DSS officials plan to ask the General Assembly for enough money to move the average pay of foster care workers closer to the Southeast average. They are also hoping for additional funding to help family members and other caregivers take care of children in in-home treatments. Deaths of children "known to DSS" occur most often in such settings.
Building a welfare team
"We have management problems. I own them," Aydlette said. "I want to make sure we've got good managers and not necessarily the folks who hung around the longest."
The director is hoping to transform foster care work and supervisory positions into career tracks, an effort she hopes will lead to less turnover, more stability and higher morale among workers.
High worker turnover, in addition to sharp budget cuts, helped increase the average foster care caseload over the past few years.
She also wants to provide more technical support and training. During the years of the budget cuts, foster care workers became more isolated and had less support, she said.
"We still lose too many people," Aydlette said. "When I look at exit interviews, it's a feeling of lack of support. We are looking at incorporating more basic social work skills into our training because I think there was this presumption that people who came into this job had some social work background, and that's not always true. We are trying to get back to basics."
And the agency is hoping to increase the number of times it audits county-level operations. Counties are currently assessed once every five years. Aydlette would like that to increase to every other year.
'Not working the way it is'
Even with the additional workers and changes, the agency faces challenges and has its critics.
The agency must cope with trying to serve a diverse, rapidly growing population with limited resources while meeting increased public demands. They must still face angry parents who don't want their kids taken away and a public that demands a reduction in child abuse, neglect and fatalities.
Also, getting the 350 new child welfare positions approved was one thing; training people to fill them and be ready for full-time case work is another.
Because the agency's training staff has not yet been fully restored, workers are being hired but may not take on full caseloads for months. The agency recently doubled up on the number of training sessions to rectify that problem.
In Horry County, which is slated to get nine additional workers over the next year, a few workers were hired this summer but may not get trained until October because so few training sessions are available.
Georgetown County DSS should be able to handle the recommended caseload with available resources and weren't slated new positions, officials said.
The deep budget cuts were not the primary cause of DSS's shortcomings, said Benjamin Stevens of Stevens MacPhail law firm in Spartanburg.
Stevens has been representing families in Spartanburg, Cherokee, Laurens and Greenville against DSS since 1995.
"I think the money issue is just a red herring to throw everybody off the trail," he said. "I saw as many problems more than four years ago as I do today."
DSS employees must be better-trained and must conduct more thorough investigations upfront, especially when it comes to determining which abuse and neglect cases are legitimate. That would make it easier to use resources wisely, he said.
"If they get better-trained people in there, they should get better results," Stevens said.
DSS should hire private lawyers to train foster care workers in appropriate and effective investigative techniques, he said.
"The budget is a huge piece of it because you can't possibly ask people to get creative about their case work when they've got double or triple caseloads," Aydlette said. "But the truth is, you can't just improve child welfare by throwing money at it. You've gotta put the management pieces in place and the training pieces and the policy pieces. Otherwise you just have a lot of people doing the wrong thing."
Within Horry County DSS, communication between the foster care and investigations arms must be improved, said Marthena Jackson, who heads up the county's foster care division. Recently a child was taken into foster care because of drug problems with the mother. A lack of communication led to that child being placed with an aunt who has a history of crack cocaine abuse.
"I think the whole system needs to be scraped and started from ground zero because it's not working the way it is," said Rev. Michael Stewart, former head of the Horry County Foster Parent Association and District 4 representative of the S.C. Foster Parent Association. "There's so much that needs to be straightened out with it."
Stewart, who adopted two children through DSS and fought the agency in court, said he's seen too many abuses of the system.
Foster parents have been frozen out of the system for pointing out problems, kids have been adopted out based on favoritism, not the child's best interest, and Stewart has seen DSS investigations short-circuit - and children sent back into dangerous situations - when an irate parent makes too much of a fuss, he said.
That's why he began advocating for other foster parents in Horry County.
"There's been some screwed up mess in this county," Stewart said. "It's just horrendous what goes on."
State-level DSS officials said they've told advocates like Stewart to make them aware of any problems. They said they have not received complaints about foster care parents being shut out of the system for pointing out problems in the system.
Beset by outside problems
DSS also has to deal with external issues. There is a statewide shortage of foster care homes and volunteers to serve as child representatives, or Guardian ad Litems, in court. Not enough of the state's residents volunteer for such positions.
High rates of domestic violence and drug abuse continue to plague the state and are major contributors in abuse and neglect and foster care cases.
Affordable parenting resources are in short supply, as are counseling and other services.
The S.C. Department of Mental Health, which works in conjunction with DSS, lost about $30 million in state funding and about 1,000 employees the past five years. The General Assembly restored some of that funding in the state's most recent budget.
"Taking into consideration that this is an incredibly difficult job, for the most part, [DSS] does its job well," said Jim Rogers, one of South Carolina's few certified parenting experts. He also conducted parenting courses for parents referred by DSS. "There are not enough services for parents. Absolutely not. And until the powers-that-be understand the importance of helping before the problems grow, the problems will continue to grow."
People too often use the agency in vindictive ways - make false reports in divorce proceedings and in neighborly disputes - which wastes the agency's resources, said Barbara Blain-Olds, former DSS attorney for Horry County. Every call must be investigated. Only about a third turn out to be legitimate.
"People use DSS as a ploy," Blain-Olds said. "Who's got time to find out if Mrs. Jones called out of spite?"
Sometimes friends of suspected child abusers say, '"Oh, I know this person would never do anything like that," and volunteer on the parents' behalf and ask court officials to let the kids be sent home or with them, she said. Children have been abused or killed in such situations.
And state legislators said they still will have to make tough funding decisions in a high-poverty, low-income state, which will affect DSS's ability to do its job - which means steep cuts could once again accompany another downturn in the economy.
"I don't control what resources we have but we still have the child," said DSS director Aydlette. "It's frustrating because we have responsibility for these kids, then we assess them and we see that they have needs, and then what do we do?"
Greta Thomas of Prevent Child Abuse South Carolina said there is a better way.
"In the recent Kids Count report released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, South Carolina fell to 47th in the nation in overall child well-being," she said. "Billions of dollars are spent each year by our government on child abuse and neglect. A better investment would be the prevention of abuse and neglect of South Carolina's children."
The S.C. Child Fatality Advisory Committee is recommending the creation of county level child death review teams and a uniform, statewide data system to improve child safety.
"Parents and caregivers need increased access to programs and services that strengthen and support them," Thomas said.
Contact ISSAC J. BAILEY at 626-0357 or ibailey@thesunnews.com.
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