'Anytime, Something Terrible Could Happen'

That's life among child protective service caseworkers, and they're coming under increasing public criticism after the deaths of several youths. But the problem is understaffing.

By Clyde Weiss

ALBANY, NEW YORK

During the 13 years that Patricia Gorham has worked in child protective services, she has felt an unease that permeates her job "day in and day out." It's a fear, she says, "that anytime, anything can happen on any of your cases. No matter how often you go into a home, there's always the outside chance that during the night, when you're not there, something terrible could happen."

Last January, something terrible did happen. Not to Gorham, a senior child protective services (CPS) caseworker for the Albany County Department of Children, Youth and Families — and a member of Local 801 of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)/ AFSCME Local 1000. And not to any of the children who comprise her caseload, or the caseloads of the other 47 caseworkers who work for the Albany agency.

It happened instead in Madison County, Ind. While responding to a house fire, firefighters there discovered the body of an eight-year-old boy, Mark Adrian Norris II. An autopsy of the malnourished and bed-sore-covered youth determined that he had died of pneumonia the day before the fire. Mark, who suffered from cerebral palsy, and his three siblings, had come to the attention of the Madison County Division of Family and Children in 2000, and were made wards of the state last November but allowed to remain in the custody of their mother.

After the death, the mother was charged with neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury, which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence. Also charged — unjustly, according to his union, Local 3732 (Council 62) — was Mike Warrum, 52, a CPS caseworker for 10 years.

 Warrum was fired and, in March, indicted by a circuit court grand jury. Prosecutors claimed that he had failed to follow a court order to supervise the Norris boy, despite the fact that he visited the home last November, shortly after the case was assigned to him. Warrum is apparently the only Indiana CPS worker ever charged with such a criminal offense.

DANGEROUS PRECEDENT. Warrum's union not only filed a grievance on his behalf, but 50 angry co-workers picketed outside the Madison County Courthouse during his initial hearing in April. Dorie McCallister, a public assistance caseworker, told a reporter at the rally, "I just feel it is an injustice. It could be any one of us."

"People will be able to sue caseworkers at the drop of a hat," warned Lois Foley, a family case coordinator and steward with Local 3732. "He's being railroaded," adds David Warrick, executive director of Council 62. Warrick, who is also an International vice president, maintains that systemic problems within the child-welfare agencies, not the overburdened workers, deserve blame. "There's not enough money to adequately staff child protective services," he says. "Because of that shortage, the caseworkers don't have time to do their jobs. They have twice the load they should have."

Warrum's attorney, Kevin P. McGoff, says his client "has tremendous confidence in the system. He's thankful for the support of his union, his friends and family, and looks forward to having his day in court."

Caseworkers across the country have come under increasing pressure because of tragic deaths that they did not cause, nor could probably have prevented. These deaths, in Indiana and elsewhere, have thrown a harsh spotlight on CPS workers. They now must worry that they can be held legally responsible for a child's death even when it wasn't the worker's fault.

LIMIT CASELOADS. The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) says caseworkers who are responsible for the long-term supervision of children should not be required to handle more than 12 to 15 of them at any given time. There is no legal requirement to meet that standard, however, and budgetary pressures to hold down staffing have led to much higher caseloads (most have caseloads that exceed the CWLA recommendations) and 100 cases per CPS caseworker is not uncommon nationwide.

Gorham, the Albany CPS worker, says her current caseload of 82 families — and the number of children that she is responsible for is even larger — is "far too many."

One of Gorham's colleagues, CPS supervisor Christine Lenaghan, says her group averages 40 cases per worker. That's double what it was just two years earlier — partly because of the number of people who can do the job. "We're chronically understaffed," Lenaghan says.

It could have been worse. In 1998, officials proposed to cut 10 CPS positions from the Albany office. "There was no way we could do our jobs if that happened," Lenaghan recalls. Through lobbying at the legislature, CSEA members have been able to stave off those cuts.

TOO MUCH TO HANDLE. Senior caseworker and CSEA member Sandy Poe, who specializes in initial child abuse investigations, has been with the agency for 28 years. She feels capable of handling her current caseload of 30 families, but cannot see how anyone can do a responsible job with many more. "You can't keep track of everybody all the time," she explains. "If you have 100 cases, and each case has two kids on average, you are responsible for 200 kids. The numbers are just overwhelming."

Overburdened CPS caseworkers have become a federal concern. The General Accounting Office, which conducts investigations for Congress, said in a March report that "sufficient staff to make regular, substantive contacts with the children and families in their caseloads is essential." The GAO noted that "large caseloads and worker turnover delay the timeliness of investigations and limit the frequency of worker visits with children" — with potentially disastrous consequences.

It's a sobering statement, yet one that does not surprise Floyd Alwon, director of CWLA's professional development center. "If we care about these kids and families," he says, "we need to put more resources into it."

"The sad truth is that the services so critical to the health and welfare of the county's most vulnerable residents are being whittled away more and more, every year, by funding cuts," says Jack Rohl, president of CSEA Local 801. "The consequences are disastrous and will only get worse."

SOLUTION: MORE RESOURCES. "Continually cutting the workforce isn't the answer," says Albany County Comptroller Michael Conners. Child protection workers, who he says are often "made scapegoats for policies that have failed," should instead be given additional resources. Without new revenue to fund his county's child welfare agency, vacancies cannot be filled, "and the people that are there have to handle more cases."

"We need more people," says Albany CPS caseworker Michelle Dowe, who handles cases on a long-term basis. She says she's "struggling" to keep up with the demands of following 21 families. She would love, she says, to have fewer cases so "I can give each family my all, meet their needs and see them consistently without running from place to place. Now, I'm burning out. I don't have enough hours in a day to get it all done."

Will more money necessarily translate into fewer tragedies? It would help to prevent them. But Sheila Poole, commissioner of the Albany County Department for Children, Youth and Families, notes that "even when you have the best practices in place, you're never going to be there at a moment when — in the middle of the night — a father shakes a baby, or a mother 'loses it,' and the baby dies.

"We have some damn good caseworkers in this department who would take a bullet for a kid," Poole adds proudly. "Unfortunately, their efforts are usually unrecognized by the general public, and that's a shame."