Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

DSS Budget

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At a series of hearings, on DSS, held by the Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect almost every professional organization testified that DSS social workers had responsibility for too many children, too many families and too many cases. The Committees report ignored this testimony. This budget continues that trend and does nothing to help DSS social workers succeed at an increasingly impossible job.

DSS social workers continue to struggle with high caseloads and a staff turnover rate well over 15% a year. As long as these issues are unaddressed by the agency and by the legislature the headlines will continue. Children will fall through the increasingly large gaps in staff and services. Commitment to children and abuse prevention requires the investment of money not mere words or promises of `magical managerial reforms’.

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  1. DSS Commissioner Harry Spence already spends more money on outsourced consultants who provide another layer of management [i.e. beauracracy] then DSS spends on social workers or services to families.

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    Since judges have been stripped in this state – and this state ONLY – of the authority to make decisions to safeguard the best interests of children in state care.  Judges cannot order a specific placement, or service to a child and family.  See http://www.masslaw.c…

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    Further, Massachusetts courts have essentially been stripped of the ability to protect children by caselaw. Judges in the Juvenile and Probate & Family courts have limited equity jurisdiction and limited ability to act in the best interests of children.

    The Supreme Judicial Court asked in 1995’s Care and Protection of Isaac: “Does a judge sitting in a juvenile session have authority to order the Department of Social Services, over its objection, to provide a specific placement and a specific staffing level for a child who has been adjudicated to be in need of care and protection and committed to the Department’s (other than temporary) custody pursuant to G.L. c. 119, Sect. 26? We answer the question: ‘No.'”

    And yet, the SJC was certainly concerned about the limits on courts in these matters, concluding later the same year, in its Care and Protection of Jeremy decision, with a plea to the Legislature: “[W]e recognize that the statutory scheme is, in some respects, unclear and leaves room for the parties in this case, and in Care and Protection of Isaac, supra, to make conflicting arguments about the proper role of a court in reviewing the department’s placement decisions.

    [from the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly of 3/19/07, at the above URL].

    • Some of the effort to organize the vendors I can understand (offloading some of the work to private agencies also reduces health care and retirement liabilities for the state).

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      However, I don’t understand why you would be pushing for judges to be making specific placement or staffing decisions.

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      The judiciary should not be micromanaging the executive. They should make decisions of law (is placement necessary?, should parental rights be limited or terminated?)

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      The DSS are the professionals as to what to do for each case. Judges do not have the knowledge or expertise needed for most of these situations.

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      With limited resources, they have to choose which services to apply to each case. (this is a similar situation in every town and state as well with regard to limited resources for needed municipal services).

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      Now, I can agree that DSS gets behind and buried because of caseload.. but passing on the decisions to some whose focus is not on the care of the child but on the rights of the participants in the case seems wrong to me.

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      The adversarial system often causes more damage to these kids than the sad situations they have been born into.

      • First, the fact that “DSS is an executive agency” does not mean that its decisions are inherently better than doing what a child’s pediatrician, therapist, teachers, and neurologist are recommending.  All too often, given the size of the case load and the culture of that agency, decisions are made not because of what a child or family needs, but because of the politics, philosophy, and yes – budget of the agency.

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        As examples, I point out two very public cases:  1)  The decision to seek to “pull the plug” on Haleigh Poutre six days after she was hospitalised; and 2) The decision to put Dontel Jeffers into a “private for profit foster home” with a single mother who beat him to death, rather than the home of a loving grandmother, or allowing him to leave the country with a loving father who had not been found unfit and had cared for him well for at least two years.

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        Unfortunately, the federal government pays $3000-$6000 for every adoption to the state AND pays into the Commonwealth for foster care costs, but does not fund the services that mentally ill children or adolescents need, nor other reunification services.

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        I have had the opportunity to compare how child welfare is handled here in Massachusetts to other states and countries in two contexts:  1) doing research for specific cases – I have now filed 101 actions in the Appellate courts of Massacusetts on behalf of children and or parents which in many cases requires researching “in comparison” to how other states handle these cases, as well as Canada, the UK, Autralia, etc; 2) Attending conferences which draw professionals from many fields from all over the country.

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        What I found was two glaring differences in how Massachusetts handles child welfare cases compared to other states:

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        1.  Massachusetts does not define what “reasonable efforts” are required by DSS before removing a child. 

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        2.  Judges in Massachusetts have no authority to order DSS to provide the services a child needs – let alone what a family needs.

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        Neither #1 nor #2 can be addressed by “the adversary system” 

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        When I represent a child who has unmet needs, and what I am seeking for the child I represent is based on their therapist, their teacher AND their pediatrician, it should be the judge who reads the reports, determines if the professionals should testify, and provides over sight to see the child’s needs are met.d

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        Children also should not be erroneously removed from parents just because the parent is homeless, for example and fathers should be considered for placement of their own children on an equal basis to mothers.

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        You seem to assume that ALL removals are warranted – they are not – and that DSS decisions are all valid and supported by doctors/teachers/clinicians – they are not.

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        In speaking with child welfare social workers from all over the country, and reading the statutes from every state I determined that the failure to define reasonable efforts and provide for “best interests over sight” in our state places children at risk.

        • There are many issues with DSS which need to be addressed. However none of them will be, as long as the legislature continues to use Commissions and Special Committees as a means to avoid having to deal with the real issues. DSS also needs a Commissioner who is not afraid to speak the truth about the Agencies needs.

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          The most recent House report, “First do no Harm”, focuses on the wishful thinking of the agency’s commissioner. He has promised that he can reform DSS without having to ask for proper staffing and services. At present DSS has a new, 200 employees plus, private bureaucracy that provides no direct services to children or families and provides no increase in safety, but it does consume over $12 million dollars of the money assigned for direct services to families.

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          To justify the under funding of DSS in the House budget, much emphasis is placed in the Committee report on the new DSS model. The Commissioner has testified in many forums about how Teaming of social workers and the new Family  EngagementDifferential Response Model will save DSS without the need for lower caseloads. DSS has failed to report the constant requests of social workers in Teaming Units for significantly lower caseloads.

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          More disingenuous is the failure to pass on the findings of a North Carolina report to the legislature on what is needed to properly implement the Differential Response Model,
          http://www.dhhs.stat…

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          This report found: “Staff turnover, higher than desired case loads, the availability of agency and community resources and supports, the dynamics of organizational change, and lack of funding for facilitators are some of the factors that have affected their capacity to fully implement Multiple Response” It further stated in the summary, “Recommendations*
          1. Evaluate appropriate caseload standard to insure that families receive services from the
          same social worker as long as the family is involved with DSS. Recommend moving
          from 1:12 caseload to 1:8 caseload for social workers. Provide additional funds as
          required to accomplish the caseload standard.”

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          Instead of addressing these issues, the legislature has issued a budget that fails to support the lofty goals of the Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect. At present DSS has a staff turnover rate among direct service child protection workers of 18% to 22% and over 79% of social workers are over the 15 to 1 weighted caseload maximum set by the Child Welfare League of America. Some social workers have caseloads as high as 25. None come close to the standard needed to implement the new DSS model. But lets make believe.

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          To paraphrase President Clinton’s campaign: “It is caseloadworkload stupid”.

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          In one of the recent hearings on DSS some young adults who had aged out of DSS testified that their social workers changed often. They said the social workers had so much to do they couldn’t spend a lot of time with them. Protecting children and restoring families takes time.

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          It is about time the legislature acted to give social workers the time to do the job. Hopefully the Senate will correct the failures of the House.

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