DSS review finds room for improvement; Jefferson County needs more caseworkers
Alex Gault, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
6 min read
Jul. 26—WATERTOWN — A monthslong review of the Jefferson County Department of Social Services has wrapped up, and county legislators heard the results during a meeting Tuesday.
At the monthly Health and Human Services Committee meeting, Courtney Handy, a consulting manager with the Bonadio Group, told legislators that overall their investigation found a lot of positives in the department's child welfare programs, and a few operational and bureaucratic processes that need tweaks. She said the group was able to speak to 86% of the staff at the department.
"That's not always the case," she said. "In general, we had a lot of cooperation, a lot of transparency, and we learned a lot."
Bonadio was asked to review DSS's child welfare operations last year after an employee of the department came to the county board with allegations of gross mishandling in a custody case involving her grandchild.
The department had also been facing months of criticism by a local advocacy group, CHILD — Community Helping Individuals Living in Distress — which has expressed concerns over child protective services and foster care services in Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties.
The Jefferson County CHILD spokesperson did not return a request for comment Wednesday.
Among the main findings of the report is that Jefferson County needs more caseworkers in the Child Protective Services and preventative and foster care departments. Currently, the department has a budget for 28 caseworkers, but only has 22 on staff. Bonadio Group suggested the department add nine more caseworkers, for a total of 31.
The group also suggested adding another manager toward the middle of the management structure, called a Grade A supervisor, so DSS has two, one handling CPS and one handling preventative and foster care services.
"This, I believe, is a position we do need, and I will probably be presenting a resolution for August's Health and Human Services meeting," DSS Commissioner Teresa W. Gaffney said after the Bonadio presentation ended.
As for the core investigation, the consultants inspected those two departments within DSS. For CPS, the group was looking at metrics like how many reports are reviewed within 24 hours of a complaint being made, how quickly a subject is contacted after a report is received and how many cases had supervisory oversight at some point in the process. The group reviewed 15 cases that were handled in their investigation period.
Handy said Jefferson County CPS needs improvement in only one area, which is adding progress notes within 30 days of an event happening. The Bonadio group found that, of the 15 CPS cases reviewed, only 27% had a progress note included in the case file within 30 days of the event the note referenced, as is required by state law. A bulk of the cases, 40%, saw a note included more than 90 days after the event, while 33% saw the note included somewhere between 30 and 90 days after the event.
Every other metric had at least an 85% compliance rate, but Bonadio analysts saw a problem with the caseloads and turnaround rate for CPS cases in Jefferson County as a whole.
The regulator for CPS and foster care programs is the state Office of Children and Family Services, which sets a standard that caseworkers should have about 15 cases at most at one time, and should close cases within 60 days from the time an investigation is opened.
"Consistently, the department had 15% of workers with caseloads greater than 15," Handy said. "We also saw that over 40% of the county's CPS investigations had been overdue, again we see that it comes with this 60-day, from start to finish (standard) when an investigation is to be closed, the county was averaging 90 days."
However, the county has ranked among the top in the state for number of cases where a safety assessment was completed within seven days.
Gaffney said the department has put together an action plan to address many of these concerns, reiterating processes that had fallen out of use. But when it comes to getting cases done and completed within 60 days, she said she simply needs more caseworkers.
"My key here is that we have got to figure out a way to bring people through the door," she said. "You have to get them through the door before you can work on retention."
She said the county human resources department is heavily recruiting for DSS caseworkers, offering the civil service test monthly most of the time.
"There are months that no one signs up for the test," Gaffney said. "We've got to get people in the door and taking the test so we can fill positions."
On the preventative and foster care services side, Bonadio group's analysis found that there are some processes that need to be shored up for caseworkers and management. Supervisor reviews of case files should be documented and written, a process that does not happen consistently under the current structure.
Sensitive cases, where the subject may be somehow related to a case worker, manager or other member of the department, should have an established process where their sensitivity is determined, documented and the case is handed off to another agency, typically the agency in the closest neighboring county.
"The protocol (you have) was fairly outdated, the names of the people in the surrounding counties no longer have those positions," Handy said.
Gaffney said her team is already working on updating the agreements they have with neighboring county departments to take cases they can't handle.
Additionally, Handy said that the community service workers, who are tasked with assisting caseworkers, should be assigned to specific departments so they can develop a better understanding of their tasks, rather than being assigned to the needs of the day.
Bonadio also suggested a more clear technology policy, discouraging the use of personal cellphones for work related-activities, and perhaps the issuance of county-owned cellphones.
They also suggested purchasing a small fleet of county-owned vehicles for DSS use. Staff are now reimbursed for the use of their personal vehicles. That means clients — children and adults — are being driven in the personal vehicles of DSS staff members.
Bonadio also suggested that the county install a metal detector in the DSS office, to screen clients for weapons before they enter interview or visitation rooms, which can be isolated.
Gaffney said many of these suggestions to address DSS process and bureaucracy are being implemented, and she is considering the requests that would require financial investments or building changes. She said she would suggest purchasing between three and five vehicles for DSS use at first, and is looking into efforts to incentivize on-call shifts for caseworkers.
