Seeking a Safe Haven

Colleen Heild

Albuquerque Journal

Children pay price as frustrated foster parents, social workers bail out

New on the job and fresh out of school, Catherine Culver White juggled as many as 26 foster care cases in early 1993.

According to a federal consent decree, the maximum load for caseworkers in the state Children, Youth and Families Department is 20.

But White did what she could, focusing on cases she felt presented the most risk.

She lasted a year on the job.

Ricky Aragon Jr. didn't survive even that long in his grandmother's foster home.

His was one of the cases low on White's list. The 2-year-old was beaten to death in April 1993 by his maternal grandmother, whom the state paid to provide foster care.

When bad things happen in foster care, social workers and foster parents are the first to be blamed.

In fact, their problems are intertwined -- and critics say the system is breaking down because CYFD isn't providing enough support to either group.

Many of the child protective services social workers are inexperienced, overworked and lack adequate supervisory, technical and clerical assistance, critics say. They hop from crisis to crisis on a starting salary of $25,000 a year.

At the same time, many of the 700 or so state-licensed foster families, who earn about $300 a month, have become frustrated and resentful of a system they say excludes their input and is unresponsive to their needs.

Some foster parents also say they've been retaliated against if they complain or talk to the court-appointed lawyers who represent foster children.

Members of both ranks sometimes feel the agency just isn't there to help them handle a growing population of children seriously damaged by abuse and neglect.

Some of the most experienced are bailing out under the strain, and children in state custody are paying the price, critics say.

Turnover in CYFD social workers has averaged 20 percent over the past two years, forcing social workers to change cases frequently.

One child might have two or three social workers a year.

"It takes a lot of time to develop a relationship with a child who's being abused to the point where the child can trust you enough to tell you something's wrong," said Sara Simon, president of the New Mexico Professional Society on Child Abuse. "And then, when you have workers changing every three to six months, nobody develops that relationship."

And when a child's file is transferred, vital information about the child's living conditions or medical needs can -- and has -- fallen through the cracks, say children's lawyers.

Foster parents burn out

"Social workers in Albuquerque routinely don't get what they need from CYFD and it causes them to burn out and many of the best ones don't stay," said Peter Cubra of Advocacy Inc., an Albuquerque corporation that provides lawyers to represent abused and neglected children.

"Foster parents are fed up with being treated as the low man on the totem pole," said Pat Briggs, an administrator with Bernalillo County's Citizen Review Board, one of 26 boards that monitor the 1,600 children in state custody.

"They say foster parents should be treated as gold. On the whole, they're not. So (CYFD) is losing one of their largest resources."

New Mexico has many good social workers and foster parents, critics say. But experts believe hiring more and better-qualified social workers and foster parents would prevent many instances of abuse.

But the state isn't in a position to be choosy; it has trouble keeping the troops already on board.

Turnover among social workers reached 23 percent in 1995, dropping to 18 percent in 1996.

Last November and December, 50 of the authorized 477 social worker positions in the Child Protective Services were vacant, according to state Personnel Office data.

But the agency said it cut the vacancy rate by half in January. CYFD Secretary Heather Wilson, who wants to hire 61 new social workers this year, told a state legislative committee last week that the current 4.8 percent vacancy rate is the lowest in years.

CYFD officials can't say how many foster parents they've lost in the last year. Children's advocates believe the number is significant.

Maryellen Strawniak, who heads the agency's policies and procedures division, said CYFD's computer system is too antiquated to retrieve that information.

Strawniak said she'd like to see that data "because if I have a good foster parent that I want to keep I would follow through with that and I could pursue that.

"As it is right now, I'm not even sure who's leaving or why they're leaving."

In a mid-January interview, Wilson said the agency had made progress in recruiting foster parents, noting that when she took the job in early 1995 there were only 700 homes and now there are more than 900.

But Strawniak a week later said a recent count showed only 732 foster families. That included regular foster homes and foster homes where children are placed with their relatives.

Strawniak said the 900 figure, which CYFD had reported in several public releases, erroneously included relative foster homes that are no longer in use.

Wilson contended that whatever the accurate number was in 1995, there are still 200 additional foster families now than there were then.

Caseloads vs. service

High vacancy rates among Child Protective Services social workers mean caseloads increase. And when caseloads go up, service to children goes down.

White said she visited the home of Aragon's grandmother once in six months.

"Certainly if there was greater funding for the state and my caseload had been lower, it would have been desirable to have more contact," White said in a deposition for a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the child's estate. The state settled the case for nearly $600,000 last year. White quit in September 1993, according to court documents. She couldn't be reached for comment.

As to current caseloads, CYFD has been circumspect.

Asked about the average number of cases per social worker, the agency in a written response to the Journal said only, "The consent decree allows for a social worker to carry a maximum of 20 out-of-home care cases. The number of cases that a worker carries is also a fluid number."

A class-action lawsuit filed in the early 1980s in New Mexico was settled by consent decree in 1983. The decree focused on children who languish in foster care for years without finding a permanent home.

Robert Levy, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said state compliance with that maximum number has been difficult to assess. But he said 20 cases per social worker are too many by today's standards and he hopes to lower that number as the lawsuit proceeds in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.

In some areas of the state, vacancies have forced social worker supervisors to take on cases themselves.

Asked how many supervisors statewide were carrying cases, CYFD would say only the number "varies over time. We do not track this number on a regular basis."

Resources strained

Wilson said she's been able to slow the bleeding from social worker ranks by recruiting social workers from out of state and by hiring new social workers at a faster pace.

She concedes that some social workers lack experience. But some social workers say they have had more education and training than their supervisors.

Several social workers complained that they don't receive adequate supervisory support to help them handle caseloads or problematic cases.

Experience can help when a social worker is determining whether a child's bruising is accidental or something more sinister. Experience is also needed when social workers try to find counseling or other services for abusive or neglectful parents, said Michael Gaylor, executive director of All Faith's Receiving Home, an Albuquerque nonprofit agency serving abused and neglected children and their families.

Wilson blamed the turnover on the inherent stress of the job and said that in order to retain social workers, her agency has created "family friendly policies" offering flex time and job sharing.

Some social workers say more could be done.

CYFD is beginning to install a new computer system, but caseworkers say they still must write their reports on paper.

There are few CYFD vehicles for social workers to use in making their rounds, and not enough child-restraint seats to ensure one for every social worker, social workers say.

"They never come with car seats," said Carolyn Griffin, executive director of Cuidando Los Ninos. "One time one of our teachers had to drive the child herself (while the caseworker followed in his car)."

State law mandates that children under age 5 be strapped into child-safety seats.

Cubra said social workers spend much of their time on paperwork, hand-delivering documents, running errands for foster families or driving children to appointments.

Some of those duties should be left to CYFD's 85 client service aides statewide, Cubra said.

But social workers say there aren't enough of those aides.

Protective Services director Deborah Hartz said there are no plans to seek funding for additional client service aides.

Of the 61 social workers the agency is requesting, 20 would be involved in recruitment, retention and training of foster parents and adoptive parents.

Another 25 would be in a new centralized intake office where abuse complaints would be received. The remaining 16 would help investigate complaints in Bernalillo County.

There's no request to add social workers who monitor children's cases and help families obtain services. But CYFD said its new intake office would free up social workers who currently have to answer initial calls and monitor cases.

Hartz said the new positions in Bernalillo County would relieve social workers from having to work nighttime emergencies and return to work the next day.

Support needed

Children in foster care are increasingly more troubled and more troublesome.

"New foster parents tend to think, 'I raised my kids, therefore I can raise somebody else's.' And it's not the same," said Linda Spears, director of child protection for the Child Welfare League, in Washington, D.C.

In many states, protective services agencies don't provide the "necessary support and training to (social) workers and to foster families on an ongoing basis," Spears said.

Some foster parents may decide it's not worth the frustration. Others may get overwhelmed and mistreat a foster child.

"Not that that's appropriate," Spears said. "But it's the kind of thing that can be avoided with proper support and most agencies don't put enough effort into that. They treat foster parents like they're staff."

Gaylor said for a foster parent, "the single most important thing is whether you (as a social worker) are available to them."

Briggs said foster parents are frustrated with the system.

"They're frustrated that they may call a social worker and the social worker doesn't get back to them for four months. Or they say, 'little Joey really needs speech therapy, and nothing's done about it for a year.' ''

A year ago, Gaylor said, CYFD asked his agency to help set up support groups for foster parents. He said he submitted a proposal but never heard back.

CYFD has a foster parent liaison to handle complaints from foster parents, and has promised to set up a system where a special committee looks into alleged retaliation.

Getting Involved

To become a foster parent, New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department requires:

*21 hours of training

*Seven references

*Medical exam

*Criminal background check

*10 hours of continued training yearly

*Reliable transportation

Foster parents receive about $330 per child per month (depending on the age of the child) for expenses incurred while caring for a foster child.

CYFD reimburses mileage at 25 cents a mile. Medical costs are covered by CYFD.

Who Can Be Foster Parents?

*Single and married adults over the age of 21.

*Employment outside the home allowed.

There is a particular need for homes that will accept adolescent children, groups of brothers and sisters and medically fragile children.

For more information call CYFD at 1-800-432-2075