Lawmakers review child welfare system

Sandy Thompson

Thursday, Dec. 9, 1999 | 10:16 a.m.

The focus of Wednesday's hearing by a legislative subcommittee studying Nevada's child welfare systems was to determine what a good system should look like.

There is consensus that the present bifurcated system, in which the state and counties handle portions of the same cases, doesn't work. "Children are being harmed," said Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, subcommittee chairwoman.

But by the end of the daylong hearing, it became apparent that before the subcommittee can make any recommendation to the 2001 Legislature on a new system, it needs an accurate picture of the present system.

How many child welfare workers are with the state and how many with the county? How much is spent on salaries? What are the accurate figures on children being served and placement options?

Compiling statistics to compare figures, the Legislative Counsel Bureau staff asked the state Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS), and Clark and Washoe counties, for those and other figures.

The figures staff received did not paint a clear picture of child welfare services because each entity interpreted the requested information differently. For example, the three entities were asked to provide the number of full-time administrative, professional and support personnel positions, and what is spent on salaries in those corresponding areas.

In its response, Clark County did not list any administrative positions or salaries. Looking only at that chart, one would get the impression there are no administrators of child welfare services in the county.

It was later explained that the administrative salaries were listed under the heading of "overhead" expenses, lumped in with other costs.

State Sen. Jon Porter, R-Boulder City, said he wanted to send a clear message to each of the entities. "We don't have time or the patience" to play with the numbers, he said. "The figures should be as precise as possible. We need figures that are easy to understand."

Porter said if the figures aren't done properly by the subcommittee's next meeting, he would ask the audit bureau to conduct its own audit.

Kirby Burgess, director of Clark County's Department of Youth and Family Services, and Steve Shaw, head of DCFS, said there was no intention to mislead the subcommittee. They said each entity interpreted the data differently.

Each entity also may have calculated staff to caseload ratios differently. Ratios reported by DCFS were 1 to 38 for substitute care, 1 to 20 for initial and ongoing investigations and 1 to 75 for adoptions. Washoe County's ratios were 1 to 12 for cases of abuse and neglect of children under age 6, 1 to 15 for children age 7 to 18 and 1 to 18 for ongoing services.

Clark County's ratios, according to the figures provided, appear to be unbelievably high: 1 to 5,877 for abuse/neglect calls and intake, 1 to 179 for Child Protective Services investigations and assessments, and 1 to 49 for CPS in-home services. There also are wide disparities on what the three entities pay to place children outside the home. The state pays $25 a day for emergency foster care; Washoe County, $40; and Clark County, $28 for a private home and $45 to $75 for placement in a facility such as Boys Town or Westcare.

Burgess noted that it costs the county $172 a day to house a child at Child Haven, the county's emergency shelter for neglected, abused and abandoned kids. The cost includes 24-hour supervision, schooling, food and special services. "This is an expensive business," Burgess said. Although Child Haven is designed for 80 children, it often houses 120 at a time, he added. The average stay is 30 days, although some children remain there for 90 days.

Burgess also noted the pay disparity between the county and state child welfare workers. "We pay our employees well," he said. On average, the gap between state and county pay is about $16,000. That's a concern of workers as the subcommittee considers which entity -- the state or county -- should handle Nevada's child welfare system.

Other professional concerns were pointed out by Joan Blewett, a social worker III with the Las Vegas DCFS office.

"We're licensed social workers. For CPS, you don't have to be a licensed social worker," she said. "If we merged and I wanted to do CPS, I must be supervised by a licensed social worker."

Others who testified cited heavy caseloads and workers not having adequate time to devote to children and families. Often, workers are just "putting out fires."

Norma Harris, executive director of the National Child Welfare Leadership Center who reviewed Washoe and Clark counties' systems, said Washoe made significant gains in effectiveness by adding staff and reducing caseloads. The number of social workers, 36, has doubled since 1995. There also is a special unit to deal with children under 6.

Harris said the number of families re-reported to the agency for abuse and neglect dropped by 50 percent in Washoe. In a model child welfare system, the ideal staff to caseload ratio is 1 to 15 or 18, Paul Vincent, director of The Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group, testified.

He cited heavy caseloads, lack of training for workers and foster parents, and generic solutions to meeting families' needs as the main reasons child welfare systems aren't doing their jobs.