Dedicated, Overworked, Underfunded

Before it became a celebration of summer's end, Labor Day was a symbol of reform--a time, said labor activist Samuel Gompers, to discuss rights and wrongs and make the worker 'stronger for it.' In the true spirit of the holiday, Americans who care about children and families should first resolve to improve the imperiled state of the nation's child-welfare workers.

Sensational cases of child abuse and neglect have kept the spotlight on the failures of state child-welfare agencies and the thousands of workers responsible for protecting children. These caseworkers, often the first responders in a family violence situation, must determine whether abuse or neglect has occurred, assess its severity and make sure the child is safe -- often within minutes of meeting the family.

Modest Salaries

In addition to serious emotional stress, caseworkers generally carry a caseload anywhere from two to three times the recommended levels. Most end up spending 50 to 80 percent of their time on paperwork--precious hours that would be better spent in direct contact with children and families.

Although mission-driven workers don't go into social services for the money, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that child-protection work remains one of the five worst paying professional jobs in the country with an average starting salary of only $22,000.

The work is also dangerous. Seventy percent of frontline caseworkers reported they had either been threatened with violence or been a crime victim. The double whammy of high stress and low pay makes it exceedingly difficult for child-welfare agencies to recruit and retain talented social workers with the experience needed to handle complex cases. Annual turnover rates for caseworkers can run as high as 50 percent, and most workers leave child-protection work for good after two years.

The lack of proper training is also a chronic problem. Currently, one-third of child-welfare workers have a social work degree or sufficient pre-service training to help them sort through complicated issues of substance abuse, domestic violence, mental illness and poverty. And instead of incentives for good performance, workers are often rewarded with larger caseloads and increased supervisory responsibilities.

Even in this state of emergency, there is good news--concrete solutions to ensure that child-welfare workers are armed with the tools they need to keep children safe.

* The federal government can start by developing minimum caseload, training and other appropriate requirements and conditioning federal child-welfare funding -- more than $20 billion per year -- on states' implementation of these standards.

* Federal child-welfare financing must also be overhauled to give states more flexibility and increased funding to give caseworkers, supervisors and child-welfare administrators the training they need to improve the lives of children and families.

* In exchange for necessary increases in federal and state child-welfare investments, state agencies must demonstrate significantly better outcomes for children and families. For example, accountability standards on workforce-related issues should play a significant role in Child and Family Service Reviews, comprehensive federal evaluations of state child-welfare agencies, to ensure adequate caseloads, training procedures and hiring and retention practices.

Financial, Moral Support

In the end, wrote Marc Parent, a former social worker in New York City, 'children don't fall through the cracks. They slip through human hands.' If the American public is truly serious about preventing abuse and neglect and helping children lead better lives, child-welfare caseworkers and administrators must be given the financial and moral support they need to succeed.

A version of this article also appeared in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer