Pressures can give social workers a case of burnout

Tuesday, Dec. 2, 1997 | 10:09 a.m.

Parents despise you. Judges think you do sloppy work. Foster kids complain you don't call enough.

Your "private" office has no front door and is about the size of a small closet. You have enough paperwork to keep the lumber industry happy.

This is Cynthia Ramser's world.

"You have to be organized, flexible, nonjudgmental," the 14-year social worker veteran says. "There's a lot of burnout in this job. I don't see doing this until I'm 65. I'd turn into a basket case."

Ramser has spent the past four years with the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services. Like her colleagues, she juggles 40 to 50 foster children at a time, about twice as many as she would like.

"We're the front-line soldiers. We're the first ones to take the shot."

Caseworkers often shoulder the blame for what's wrong with the child protective services system.

It isn't easy to understand why anyone would want the job.

"It's very challenging," Ramser says. "It's never boring. When you come in you know you have 10 things to do. Social workers have a lot of camaraderie. If you have a problem, they're open to helping you out."

Aside from satisfying the needs of foster children, Ramser has to prepare case plans for the natural parents, attend Clark County Family Court hearings and deal with nervous relatives who want updates on the kids. There are also school officials, psychologists and other assorted professionals to deal with.

With heavy caseloads, Ramser and her colleagues struggle to keep their heads afloat. Their jobs have been made even more difficult in recent years because of the higher number of foster children born to mothers who abused drugs or alcohol during pregnancy.

"A lot of times we're putting out a lot of fires," Ramser says. "Our job has come down to crisis management. The crisis at the time is the thing that gets the most attention. The other kids are put on the back burner.

"We should document everything that goes on with a case but it doesn't happen. Sometimes when you go back to a case you've forgotten some of the details."

Parents need help with resources and with talking to therapists, Ramser says. "Sometimes they get overwhelmed and drop out, and you never hear from them again."

She also would like to see more support for foster parents such as a state-operated weekend shelter for the children so the foster parents could take a needed break.

She says the child protective system would probably be better off if run totally by the county, instead of having the state on the back end.

Also, state caseworkers are paid thousands of dollars less per year than county social workers for doing the same level of work.

"That would be one of the incentives, if we were paid what the county workers were paid," Ramser says. "It creates some anxiety here that they get paid more. Plus, the county workers get to get rid of their cases. They have more turnover. We may have the same case for 10 years."

One of the few bright spots in the job is that occasional time when a child Ramser helped reunite with her family drops her a line to say thanks.

"It's a small percentage but a percentage that makes you feel you made a difference," she said.