We hear quite regularly, how child protective services destroy the lives of families. Today, though just once let's take a peek at what it's like being an employee of CPS.
What Shawna's experience is like
Shawna is an Employee of Oklahoma DEPARTMENT of HUMAN SERVICES, where she works as a CPS case manager. When asked about her thoughts on what children in her caseload, she states she is "unsure if most of them are safe. " It's a genuine concern, because Shawna obviously has best interest in protecting children from abusive or neglectful families.
She goes on to explain that her caseloads are so numerous that she often works 20 hours, often not being able to balance her work and family life. She tells a local news agency in Oklahoma that she handles 60-70 cases per week...
The real problem begins above workers paygrade
Shawna states that working 60-70 cases per week, is a violation of the "pinnacle plan" which states that case workers are only to take on a maximum of 12 cases per week.
typical case load for a DHS employee for a week.
Src
She also notes the concern that errors and shortcuts are taken to close cases. Case workers are expected to handle and close cases in 30-60 days. What makes this troubling according to her peers is that the agency reports a 75% compliance in case load management.
She goes on to state that when an employee leaves or is fired, the agency makes it look as if the worker closed all the cases that where active to keep the numbers up.
She states many of her peers are turning to drugs and alcohol to keep up with the stress. "We are responsible for these children if anything bad happens to them, while we have their case. At any given time there is a rolling backlog for 60 days worth of cases."
opinion
After Shawna's story, I can see that there are good people out there trying to help innocent children. One can also see that directors and higher up have a pure interest in numbers and funding. I personally, do not think i could cope with the stress some of these workers face. Thinking, how can these people blow the whistle? How many want to blow the whistle, but have nowhere to turn? These are good hearted people (generally) but misguided by internal policy/education, that have to succumb to impossible scenarios. This is why corruption and deception happens. It also demonstrates this is top down.
Shawna's story is that workers are ordered to take on all these caseloads.Many would think hire more workers, but THIS IS NOT A SOLUTION. Maybe, we should end the war on families and instead entertain the responsibility of rehabilitating problematic parents when needed. This would be my request, that families stop being torn apart by an evil system.
What this spoke to me is the top of the agency is corrupted and if workers are truly turning to drugs to cope with work, why are they still taking children from homes for same cause?
As always let me know with your thoughts below.
100% of steem/sbd will goto #familyprotection