A new report reveals the ongoing struggles. “Arizona’s foster-care population has grown by more than 40 percent in three years. ”
Arizona CPS struggles continue [Arizona Central 1/24/13 by Mary K. Reinhardt] explains that “[n]early 1,000 new foster families opened their doors between March and September, while 747 foster homes closed. At 3,748, the number of licensed foster families in the state is the highest since March 2010, when foster homes began closing faster than new ones could open. ”
“During the six-month period that ended Sept. 30, CPS removed more than 5,700 children from homes, placing most of them with relatives or in family foster homes. ‘
” A monthly report released in December shows the number of foster kids had climbed still higher, to nearly 14,400, as of Nov. 30″ [It does not breakdown the number by relative and stranger placements.]
“Though the report doesn’t include information about caseloads for CPS workers, DES officials said they average about twice that of state and national standards.
Meanwhile, a stubborn backlog of cases has grown, even as a team of seasoned caseworkers and supervisors has been working for more than a year to whittle it down. The backlog of inactive cases, where there has been no action on a case for at least two months, is now at nearly 13,000.
CPS administrator Deb Harper said more than two-thirds of those cases have been investigated, but workers have not had time to close them. [So almost 4300 cases in the system have not been investigated yet they continued to remove 5700 children from homes in the past 6 months!]
Hotline administrator Gary Quinones said over the past six months, workers have reduced “abandoned” calls by 39 percent, which means fewer callers are hanging up before their calls are answered.
Calls also are being answered more quickly, Quinones said, in part because so-called mandated reporters, such as health-care workers and teachers, are routed through a separate queue. The average wait time this month is 80 seconds, compared with four minutes in 2011. ”
Negatives of the report include
- 26 percent of foster children did not receive regular monthly visits from CPS caseworkers, as required by law. That’s up from 19 percent a year earlier.
- 943 hotline reports were listed as “not responded to,” though DES officials said all of them were reviewed by senior staff to determine whether full investigations were warranted.
- 2,049 children were living in group homes, crisis shelters or residential treatment, compared with 1,586 a year earlier, a 29 percent increase.
- Three children with open CPS cases died as a result of abuse or neglect, compared with five during the previous six-month period.
- CPS removed nine children from homes where they had been placed for adoption and returned them to foster care.
Positive points of the report:
- An increase in the number of family foster homes for the first time in three years.
- Improvements in the child-abuse hotline and caseworker recruitment and training
- Gov. Jan Brewer’s request for $88 million in new funding for caseworkers and foster-care expenses
REFORM Puzzle Piece
Update: “Child advocates called on legislators Tuesday [April 30, 2013] to fully fund Gov. Jan Brewer’s request for an additional $77 million for the state’s overwhelmed child-welfare agency, saying it’s the bare minimum needed to keep pace with record growth.
Lawmakers are generally supportive of increasing funding for Child Protective Services, including adding caseworkers and foster-care funding. But the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 has been bogged down in negotiations over Medicaid expansion and no definitive CPS numbers have yet emerged.
Child-welfare experts warned that increasing the number of staff without hiking funding for services, such as counseling and substance-abuse treatment, fails to give caseworkers the tools they need to do their jobs and robs families of what they need to stay together or reunite.
“The power is in the hands of our elected leaders,” said Dana Wolfe Naimark, CEO of Children’s Action Alliance. “This needs to be front and center.”
Brewer has made CPS a top budget priority, with the agency accounting for 15 percent of proposed new spending.
Lawmakers quickly responded to the governor’s request for $4.4 million in emergency funding to hire 50 additional CPS staffers, including 31 caseworkers. The governor withdrew her current-year request for $10.4 million to shore up family services, but that amount is included in her fiscal 2014 request.
That funding includes $14.3 million for an additional 150 workers, nearly $30 million to house the growing number of foster children in group homes and shelters, $9.6 million to accommodate growth in child-care services for parents involved with CPS, and an additional $8 million to keep up with subsidies for foster and adoptive parents.
The agency is struggling to care for a record number of foster children amid a shortage of foster homes, a backlog of nearly 13,000 cases and hundreds more that are not investigated, and worker caseloads that average twice the national standard. More than 2,000 of the 14,300 Arizona children in foster care were living in crisis shelters and group homes as of Feb. 28.
“The workload issue is out of control,” said Rhonda Cash, a former CPS supervisor who left the agency last year. “When we’re not fair to parents, we’re not fair to children. We’ve got to get these services increased. We’ve got to get staff the resources that they need.”
In addition, without the child-care funding boost, low-income working parents of an estimated 4,000 children would lose their subsidies to make room for additional CPS kids, who have priority.”
Arizona lawmakers urged to give CPS an additional $77 million
[Arizona Central 4/30/13 by Mary K. Reinhardt]
Update 2: “The Arizona House unanimously approved legislation Tuesday to remake the system for handling child-abuse and -neglect reports, a move advocates say is an important step toward getting the state’s child-welfare system back on track.
Senate Bill 1375 would create a two-tiered system to handle such reports, diverting lower-level cases to community social-service agencies and dramatically reducing worker caseloads that are now twice state standards.
It would also allow doctors, teachers and others who are required to report suspected child abuse and neglect to do so online rather than call the state’s burdened child-abuse hotline.
The original bill, written by Gov. Jan Brewer’s administration and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s office, had been stuck in the Senate for months.
But after weeks of negotiations with Sen. Rick Murphy, R-Glendale, and others, Rep. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix, pried it loose by amending key provisions onto the separate Senate bill during floor debate Tuesday.
“When it comes down to the kids, we can all get on the same page,” Brophy McGee said after the vote. “I realize we disagree about a lot of things, but we don’t disagree about this.”
Brophy McGee’s move allowed the original child-welfare bill, House Bill 2144, to be used by Murphy to revive two bills that had stalled in the House.
Murphy, a foster father of three who has adopted five children from Child Protective Services, was absent, but his bills were added to HB 2144 during debate on the Senate floor Tuesday.
That measure, given tentative approval in the Senate, broadens the conditions under which a Juvenile Court judge would be required to finalize adoption of a foster child and would add 4- and 5-year-olds to the law allowing parental rights to be legally terminated within six months of a child coming into foster care. Now, that expedited legal process applies to children from birth through age 3.”
“SB 1375 also would strengthen a special-investigations unit that targets the most severe abuse cases and reauthorizes a CPS oversight committee. The investigations unit and oversight panel were key task-force recommendations.”
Child Welfare Bill Clears House
[Arizona Central 6/11/13 by Mary K. Reinhardt]
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