State retooling child protection
By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
Capping social workers' caseloads, creating more support staff positions and tapping more community resources were among the suggestions from a state conference to improve the state's child protection system.
About 150 people, including state Department of Human Services staff, federal officials and community service providers, gathered Wednesday and yesterday to begin developing an improvement plan for the department's Child Welfare Services Branch.
The plan will address deficiencies in the state's child welfare system that were identified by a 36-member team from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in July.
Officials from the federal team, which conducted a weeklong examination of the child welfare system, said while the state does certain things well, high caseloads and the lack of services affected the results.
The state is awaiting a final report from the federal team, and it is expected to recommend that the state be fined if it does not meet certain goals within two years. But a DHHS official has said that while all of the 39 other states that have been reviewed have been told to improve their systems or face fines, none has actually had to pay.
The state has 90 days after receiving the report to submit the improvement plan, but the department has decided to begin crafting a plan now. The two-year clock begins ticking once federal officials approve the plan.
Working groups at the conference talked about high caseloads and the need to make better use of money and resources while exploring untapped resources.
Some suggested hiring more support staffers to help social workers with paperwork and offering social workers more compensation such as flexible time schedules or increased benefits. Some said the branch needs to develop clear and consistent standards and expand partnerships in the community.
Other suggestions included expanding the availability of training and child and family services on Neighbor Islands and rural areas. Participants also said the state needs professional help from the community to help recruit foster parents and adoptive parents.
DHS director Lillian Koller said the system will undergo "a fair amount of restructuring" so services and efforts are better coordinated. For example, a special staff could be devoted to high-needs cases "instead of every worker crashing their workload and delaying the other low-needs cases that actually wouldn't even need to be in foster care because you could link them into services," she said.
Koller also stressed the need for more foster parents. For more information on foster and adoptive parenting, call 454-2570 or (800) 995-7949 on the Neighbor Islands.
Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.