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LAST IN A SERIES
CYFD, Others Propose Remedies for Safer System
Critics say the state agency's plan to fund 61 more social workers is a good start, but more is needed
By Colleen Heild
Journal Investigative Reporter
Children, Youth and Families Secretary Heather Wilson is at the Legislature this year pitching protection for children.
Armed with a $2.1 million budget increase request and a plan called "Keeping Kids Safe," Wilson seeks 61 new social workers to improve child abuse investigations and recruitment of foster and adoptive parents.
Her critics say it's about time.
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Although child abuse and neglect complaints escalated during Wilson's two years at the agency, this is her first request for more social workers to keep pace.
Peter Cubra, president of the Albuquerque-based Advocacy Inc., said Gov. Gary Johnson's administration has been indifferent to children's needs.
"They've failed to request adequate resources," said Cubra, whose agency provides legal services to abused and neglected children. "They've been so busy building prisons that they have ignored the abused children."
Wilson defended her policy decisions. She said she had to deal with a crisis in juvenile corrections and there was little hope of securing more money for child protective services during the past two years of no-growth budgeting.
CYFD officials are proud of their new plan.
"We really want to problem-solve and make sure children have an opportunity to be safe and in nurturing homes," said Deborah Hartz, director of CYFD's Protective Services Division.
The agency also wants state law to be amended to allow more children at risk to be taken into state custody and to permit CYFD to disclose information in certain child abuse and neglect cases.
 | In the past two years under CYFD Secretary Heather Wilson, the protective services budget has remained flat. |
Children's advocates hope this is the beginning of a major initiative to protect abused and neglected children -- especially those in CYFD foster homes.
"CYFD's social workers are clearly drowning in (child abuse and neglect) referrals, and the 61 additional social workers are desperately needed," Cubra said.
But more needs to be done, children's advocates say. In addition to Wilson's proposal, children's advocates, foster parents, professionals, lawyers and judges suggest:
* Enhancing background checks of prospective foster parents by requiring more extensive personal interviews by social workers.
* Improving training for social workers, their supervisors and foster parents.
* Creating teams of specialized investigators to root out child sexual abuse, which is the primary abuse alleged in New Mexico foster care lawsuits.
* Expanding efforts to recruit and retain foster parents.
* Hiring more social workers to monitor children in state custody, and increasing support staff to help with clerical duties.
Many children's advocates fear the current problems will be exacerbated when welfare reform hits.
"As families get cut off of welfare and medical assistance, and if they haven't had training to get a job or support themselves and get covered by insurance, what are they doing to do with their kids?" asked Sara Simon, president of the New Mexico Professional Society on Child Abuse. "We're going to have a disaster in a couple of years."
Fending off complaints
Wilson's new budget proposal doesn't specifically address abuse in foster homes -- which has cost the state more than $4 million in lawsuit settlements in the past five years.
It also doesn't include increases for assisting and monitoring abusive families who keep custody of their children.
"Keeping Kids Safe" focuses more on the front end of the system, when complaints of child abuse and neglect arise. CYFD is asking for 25 new social workers to create a 35-person centralized office in Bernalillo County to field initial complaints from throughout the state.
The agency is also seeking 16 additional social workers to cut caseloads and after-hours work for Bernalillo County social workers who investigate abuse and neglect complaints. Last year, one-third of the state's 28,000 abuse and neglect reports arose in Bernalillo County.
"Turnover (in that investigations unit) has been high because of unmanageable caseloads," a CYFD budget request document states.
Bernalillo County social worker investigators carry about 15 to 21 cases a month, the document says. The national standard is 10 to 12 cases per worker. The Child Welfare League of America recommends lower ratios.
Adding 16 workers could lead to less turnover because case loads would drop to an average of 12.57, the document states.
Of the remaining 20 new social workers, 12 would recruit and work with foster families, while eight would focus on adoptions, CYFD budget documents show.
Regarding foster care reform, Wilson said she has a special in-house "Quality Control" group looking into the issue.
Wilson told a legislative committee last week that the plan also aims to improve the way social workers assess risks to children during investigations of child abuse or neglect.
CYFD is seeking changes in New Mexico law's definitions of abused and neglected children. That would allow the agency to seek legal custody of children at risk of being abused even if an abuse complaint can't be proven by CYFD social workers.
Currently, the department seeks custody only when abuse or neglect has been substantiated -- which occurs in about 30 percent of complaints investigated.
Wilson said in a letter to the Journal this week, "there are many times when a social worker cannot get enough evidence to substantiate abuse but feels strongly that a child is at risk."
Wilson said that with the changes in the legal definitions, CYFD also hopes to narrow the focus of the types of complaints it will investigate.
"We sometimes get reports to investigate educational neglect, failure to get immunizations, or nutritional neglect and even some forms of "emotional" neglect.
"While these are important parenting issues," Wilson stated, "they rarely rise to the level where a child's safety is in jeopardy. The state should only be involved in an abuse or neglect proceeding if it is an issue of safety."
Otherwise, she said, the family should be referred to other services in the community.
Perception of neglect
While applauding the agency's new budget request, some children's advocates believe the current administration has allowed a bad problem to get worse.
CYFD, which was created in 1992, oversees Child Protective Services, foster care, day care, prevention programs and juvenile corrections.
Legislative budget staffers say past administrations consistently requested funds to hire additional child protective social workers.
"In CPS (Child Protective Services), you always ask for more positions, because the problem increases every year," one former CYFD official said.
But that practice stopped during Johnson's first two years in office, and child protective services funding remained flat.
Jerry Silva, an international union representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, contended that "keeping the same level of employees but increasing the workload was their (CYFD) agenda."
But Wilson said she would have been "abrogating her responsibility" as a manager to have sought more social workers when the general fund budget was only growing by 3 percent a year.
She said she had nothing to do with the budget she inherited upon her appointment by Johnson in January 1995. Last year, more social workers weren't requested because there was "no clear plan" on what should be done with them.
Wilson said she did convince the Legislature last year to appropriate funding for a CYFD computer system. The project has been in the works since 1993. The system, which is to begin operation by this summer, will allow CYFD to keep better track of its cases statewide.
State Rep. John Heaton, D-Carlsbad, and others have accused CYFD of having a "background agenda of bars and bricks" by focusing on juvenile corrections and forgetting abused and neglected children.
Wilson said "the crisis in the juvenile justice system" demanded her attention.
Children's advocates like Corinne Wolfe say they prefer not to dwell on the past.
"The fact that they have asked (for 61 new social workers) does indicate their concern," said Wolfe, a Santa Fe children's advocate who helped bring the 1980 class-action lawsuit that led to major changes in New Mexico's foster care system.
'Litany of complaints'
Nevertheless, Wilson has faced tough questioning in presenting her plan to legislators.
At CYFD's first budget hearing on Feb. 7, Heaton said he's heard a "litany of complaints" about CYFD inaction on child abuse allegations.
"Our schoolteachers say sometimes it takes six months to get a response," Heaton told Wilson. "And they don't complain frivolously. Abuses of children go on for many, many, many months."
Wilson told him that one of CYFD's proposals, which requires legislative action, would expand social workers' ability to remove children from bad situations.
"The issue of excellence is wonderful. Nice words," Heaton retorted. "The problem is that we've heard those words before, and we don't see any demonstration of the fact. We see a lot of pretty pamphlets, and a lot of charts that are wonderful, but I'm extremely concerned. I think blood and bruises are down and dirty risks."
He said CYFD's plan to centralize intake and screening of reports "further removes the intervention. Intake 250 miles away from the community is not the solution to getting quick, expeditious intervention."
But CYFD officials say uniformity in screening calls is important.
"I came to this job as a foster parent, and the reason I'm here is because I'm going to change it (the system)," Wilson told Heaton.
She told Heaton her agency has made significant strides in lowering the vacancy rate among social workers and revising Child Protective Services policies and procedures to make them more understandable.
"That sounds wonderful, but in the last couple of years, the perception is it's getting worse, not better," Heaton said.
But Rep. Frank Bird, R-Albuquerque, came to Wilson's defense, saying that wasn't the perception in other areas of the state.
Heaton disagreed and asked when things would improve.
Wilson answered, "Change takes time."
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