7 Ohio counties merge family services offices
Columbus Dispatch, Nov. 6, 2011.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Faced with the problem of what to do about an increasing workload amid state funding cuts, seven Ohio counties have decided to merge the offices of their Job and Family Services departments in an effort to more efficiently handle more cases with limited means.
The collaboration, which begins next month, includes Delaware, Knox, Wood, Hancock, Marion, Morrow and Sandusky counties, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
The ill-named Collabor8 was originally to include Seneca County, which will now wait until after the project gets under way to decide whether to join.
Cases will be handled much like a production line with each employee performing a specific task instead of one worker seeing a case all the way through, interim director in Delaware County Angela Thomas tells the newspaper.
Overwhelmed by rising caseloads, the counties hope they can improve efficiency by 30 percent. The counties estimate that they will have a combined average of 2,500 new applications per month for food stamps, Medicaid and cash assistance, in addition to 3,600 renewals.
Whether the collaboration improves efficiency will be determined by call and hold times and quality-control analysis performed by Bowling Green State University. Only two counties - Wood and Know - would begin collaborating in December, with the other five joining on Jan. 6.
"We're trying to function as one large county," said David Wigent, director of the Wood County office where the idea took shape.
Currently, it takes up to three weeks for an applicant to make an appointment and wait for a caseworker to process the application. Brenda Newell, public-assistance supervisor in Delaware County, says the new system will allow the offices to complete applications nearly instantaneously over the phone.
Wigent acknowledged that a multicounty phone-based operation could seem less personal, but he said the priority is to get people served.
Other counties are also looking at consolidation to boost efficiency.
Vinton, Hocking and Ross counties plan to merge their Job and Family Services departments with a board of representatives from each county overseeing the new combined department.
"Any time counties can share resources and collaborate to bring down administrative costs, we are absolutely supportive," Ohio Department of Job and Family Services spokesman Ben Johnson told the newspaper.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Northeast Ohio foster-care alumni reunite for holiday meal at Cleveland church
Northeast Ohio foster-care alumni reunite for holiday meal at Cleveland church
Ewinger, James. Cleveland Plain Dealer, Nov. 20, 2011.
LaTasha C. Watts, right, shares a hug Saturday with Zelma Brown during the annual Foster Care Alumni of America Thanksgiving meal reunion at the Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Dozens who grew up without family ties forged new ones Saturday at the annual Thanksgiving event for foster-care alumni from around the region.
The Northeast Ohio celebration was at Antioch Baptist Church, while two others were planned for Southwest and Central Ohio -- all under the umbrella of the Ohio Chapter of Foster Care Alumni of America.
It was a family-style Thanksgiving dinner for a really big family: roughly 90, most of whom had been in foster care before reaching adulthood and the rest, aged 16 and 17, still in foster homes.
For some, they renewed old acquaintances or made new ones. For others, they shared experiences. After the meal, there was an open mike session where they could sing, recite poetry or just talk about their experiences and the people who meant the most to them.
Lisa Dickson, founder of the Foster Care Alumni of America Ohio chapter and a founding member of the national organization, said the get-togethers have been going on since 2007.
The first one took place with Thanksgiving dinner on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, she said, to support the Fostering Connections to Success Act which passed the following year.
Betsie Norris, founder and executive director of Adoption Network Cleveland, explained the transition to adulthood for young men and women in permanent foster care can be difficult.
The youths in permanent custody have been taken from their parents by the courts. They are eligible for adoption into new families, Norris said, but the older they get, the less likely they are to get adopted, which leads to aging out of foster care.
Many will have been in numerous foster homes by then, often separated from birth siblings and permanently severed from parents. The process deprives many of them of the stabilizing influences of a permanent family.
Adoption Network Cleveland does not place children in adoptive homes, but brings together the resources to help them as well as helping them find their birth families when they reach adulthood.
ANC joined with the Village Network, a private foster-care planning agency, Foster Care Alumni, Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services and the National Council of Jewish Women for Saturday's event.
Norris said that in 2004 there were 1,700 in permanent foster care in this county. The state-funded Adopt Ohio program helped cut that to 570, she said, but the number is at 680 this year and continues to creep up since the state cut off funds for the program in 2009.
Jurlee Thomas, 63, of Lorain had one of the most dramatic stories to relate Saturday.
"My mother was a foster child," she said, and so was she, as were her own six children. Today Thomas has eight grandchildren and six great-grand kids, all with their birth families.
Thomas said she remains in touch with four of her children and Adoption Network is helping her to find the other two. Meanwhile, she volunteers with ANC and the county "whenever I can."
"Being a foster child does not define who you are," Thomas said. "Your goals and aspirations define you. Foster care is just your house."
But the people who can best help foster youths transition into adulthood are others who have come out of the system.
"One foster child helping another," she said.
Terrell Howard, 18, was in foster care for 11 years -- with 13 different families. Today, he is studying criminal justice at a career college in Independence.
Joe Jackson of Children and Family Services said Howard testified before the Ohio legislature earlier this year, one of many who successfully argued against further child-welfare fund cuts.
"When he said he was going to college, he got a standing ovation," Jackson said.
The Thanksgiving feast, everything from cranberry sauce to turkey and ham, was dished up by a body of volunteer servers, who included Cuyahoga County Juvenile Judge Kristin Sweeney and County Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell.
Ewinger, James. Cleveland Plain Dealer, Nov. 20, 2011.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Dozens who grew up without family ties forged new ones Saturday at the annual Thanksgiving event for foster-care alumni from around the region.
The Northeast Ohio celebration was at Antioch Baptist Church, while two others were planned for Southwest and Central Ohio -- all under the umbrella of the Ohio Chapter of Foster Care Alumni of America.
It was a family-style Thanksgiving dinner for a really big family: roughly 90, most of whom had been in foster care before reaching adulthood and the rest, aged 16 and 17, still in foster homes.
For some, they renewed old acquaintances or made new ones. For others, they shared experiences. After the meal, there was an open mike session where they could sing, recite poetry or just talk about their experiences and the people who meant the most to them.
Lisa Dickson, founder of the Foster Care Alumni of America Ohio chapter and a founding member of the national organization, said the get-togethers have been going on since 2007.
The first one took place with Thanksgiving dinner on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, she said, to support the Fostering Connections to Success Act which passed the following year.
Betsie Norris, founder and executive director of Adoption Network Cleveland, explained the transition to adulthood for young men and women in permanent foster care can be difficult.
The youths in permanent custody have been taken from their parents by the courts. They are eligible for adoption into new families, Norris said, but the older they get, the less likely they are to get adopted, which leads to aging out of foster care.
Many will have been in numerous foster homes by then, often separated from birth siblings and permanently severed from parents. The process deprives many of them of the stabilizing influences of a permanent family.
Adoption Network Cleveland does not place children in adoptive homes, but brings together the resources to help them as well as helping them find their birth families when they reach adulthood.
ANC joined with the Village Network, a private foster-care planning agency, Foster Care Alumni, Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services and the National Council of Jewish Women for Saturday's event.
Norris said that in 2004 there were 1,700 in permanent foster care in this county. The state-funded Adopt Ohio program helped cut that to 570, she said, but the number is at 680 this year and continues to creep up since the state cut off funds for the program in 2009.
Jurlee Thomas, 63, of Lorain had one of the most dramatic stories to relate Saturday.
"My mother was a foster child," she said, and so was she, as were her own six children. Today Thomas has eight grandchildren and six great-grand kids, all with their birth families.
Thomas said she remains in touch with four of her children and Adoption Network is helping her to find the other two. Meanwhile, she volunteers with ANC and the county "whenever I can."
"Being a foster child does not define who you are," Thomas said. "Your goals and aspirations define you. Foster care is just your house."
But the people who can best help foster youths transition into adulthood are others who have come out of the system.
"One foster child helping another," she said.
Terrell Howard, 18, was in foster care for 11 years -- with 13 different families. Today, he is studying criminal justice at a career college in Independence.
Joe Jackson of Children and Family Services said Howard testified before the Ohio legislature earlier this year, one of many who successfully argued against further child-welfare fund cuts.
"When he said he was going to college, he got a standing ovation," Jackson said.
The Thanksgiving feast, everything from cranberry sauce to turkey and ham, was dished up by a body of volunteer servers, who included Cuyahoga County Juvenile Judge Kristin Sweeney and County Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Thousands of Ohio Children Waiting for a Home
Thousands of Ohio Children Waiting for a Home
Public News Services-OH, Nov. 15, 2011.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Lawmakers, clergy members, young adults and community leaders are gathering in Columbus today as part of National Adoption Awareness Month to draw attention to the number of children without a permanent home.
Nearly 3,000 children in Ohio are waiting to be adopted, and each year more than 1,000 teens age out of foster care. Rita Soronen, president and chief executive officer of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, says it's a rough road for those children who leave the system without a family.
"They're much more likely to be homeless, undereducated, underemployed. They may fall back into government systems, criminal-justice systems. It's not because they're bad kids, it's because they don't have those support systems around them."
Adoption can give foster children the foundation they need to become successful in the future, says James Griffie, vice president of Leaders of Tomorrow. He says he knows first-hand that most children just want a good, stable home.
"People don't really know the struggles of what kids go through in care. I got adopted at the age of 16, and it was a blessing to me to be with a family that loved me."
Every child is adoptable, Soronen says, no matter what their age, cultural background or challenges.
"These are children with the wishes and hopes and dreams of every other child, and we see success across Ohio every day with particularly older youth being brought into families and really becoming thriving and loved individuals."
Each child deserves a chance to make a permanent family connection, Soronen says, and she's encouraging Ohioans to step forward and consider foster-care adoption. Additionally, during today's Third Annual Adoption Advocacy Day, attendees will urge Ohio leaders and policymakers to renew their commitment to a stable investment in adoption.
Public News Services-OH, Nov. 15, 2011.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Lawmakers, clergy members, young adults and community leaders are gathering in Columbus today as part of National Adoption Awareness Month to draw attention to the number of children without a permanent home.
Nearly 3,000 children in Ohio are waiting to be adopted, and each year more than 1,000 teens age out of foster care. Rita Soronen, president and chief executive officer of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, says it's a rough road for those children who leave the system without a family.
"They're much more likely to be homeless, undereducated, underemployed. They may fall back into government systems, criminal-justice systems. It's not because they're bad kids, it's because they don't have those support systems around them."
Adoption can give foster children the foundation they need to become successful in the future, says James Griffie, vice president of Leaders of Tomorrow. He says he knows first-hand that most children just want a good, stable home.
"People don't really know the struggles of what kids go through in care. I got adopted at the age of 16, and it was a blessing to me to be with a family that loved me."
Every child is adoptable, Soronen says, no matter what their age, cultural background or challenges.
"These are children with the wishes and hopes and dreams of every other child, and we see success across Ohio every day with particularly older youth being brought into families and really becoming thriving and loved individuals."
Each child deserves a chance to make a permanent family connection, Soronen says, and she's encouraging Ohioans to step forward and consider foster-care adoption. Additionally, during today's Third Annual Adoption Advocacy Day, attendees will urge Ohio leaders and policymakers to renew their commitment to a stable investment in adoption.
New Director of Cuyahoga County
New child-welfare chief aims to restore confidence in Cuyahoga agency
Spector, Harlan. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 21, 2011.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The new director of the Cuyahoga County child-welfare department says a top priority is restoring confidence in the agency, as officials grapple with recommendations a review panel made for it a year ago.
Patricia Rideout took over the Department of Children and Family Services in August, after county Executive Ed FitzGerald fired Deborah Forkas, the former chief. Forkas had been criticized for controversial budget cuts and for the agency's handling of several cases.
The group was formed after two children were killed and two others were starved nearly to death despite the department being involved in their circumstances. The agency also made missteps in a number of other cases, including one in which it missed warning signs from its own workers when it recommended custody of an infant to a convicted drug trafficker with a history of domestic violence.
The panel's 72 recommendations included improving services to combat threats from domestic violence, substance abuse and mental illness -- problems common to many child abuse and neglect cases.
During a session with task force members Thursday about department progress, Rideout said about 10 percent of suggested reforms have been adopted, but most are still in development. The agency is working more closely with the county mental health and drug addiction services board to assess parents. It has also adopted a more rigorous process for deciding child placements and reunifications with parents, she said.
"This is a long-term project as you can imagine," she said.
Still unanswered is whether the department will have money to carry out some of the recommendations, including enhanced services after children are returned to parental custody.
Some services have been lost to budget cuts, and the agency has lost a number of staff members due to cuts and attrition. Staffing is down from 1,026 in 2009 to 801. Fifty workers left the department this year. Caseloads per worker have risen.
Rideout said one of her goals is to increase family visits for children in county custody, which has been shown to quicken family reunifications. But the department in 2009 cut staff assigned to transport children and monitor visits. The job now falls to caseworkers, who sometimes drive an hour or more to pick up children in foster care, sit through meetings and drive them back.
"We're going to need creativity around this, but we've got to do better" Rideout told the gathering. "This is a high priority."
David Crampton, a Case Western Reserve University professor of social work who chaired the task force, said in an interview there is concern about vacant staff positions.
"Some [jobs] have been unfilled for a while, so we'll have to get some clarity on what is a realistic staffing level," Crampton said.
Rideout is filling 11 jobs in the agency and has asked FitzGerald for authority to hire 15 more. FitzGerald, who accompanied Rideout to a meeting Wednesday with The Plain Dealer editorial board, said he will await recommendations from Rideout about programs that would require additional money.
Rideout said she is also trying to strengthen collaborations with neighborhood groups and other outside organizations, which she said are crucial to the department's mission.
Poverty has risen more in NE Ohio than anywhere in the nation
Brookings report finds poverty-stricken neighborhoods jump dramatically in Cleveland area
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Nov. 3, 2011. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The number of people living in extremely poor neighborhoods has grown faster in Northeast Ohio suburbs than elsewhere in the nation, poverty figures released Thursday by the Brookings Institution show.
By the end of 2009, 13 Northeast Ohio suburban neighborhoods had poverty rates of at least 40 percent, Brookings researchers found. Ten years earlier there was none.
With an 8 percentage point increase, Cleveland's suburbs claimed the nation's fourth highest rate of growth of the poor in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. These neighborhoods include parts of Cleveland Heights, Elyria, Euclid, Kent, Lorain and Painesville, each of which Brookings considers "high-density" urban suburbs of Cleveland and Akron.
More than 24,000 people called these neighborhoods home.
"Yes, this is exactly what we've seen," said Claudia Coulton, a professor and co-director of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at Case Western Reserve University. "It [poverty] has hit the suburbs hard."
The Brookings study, The Re-Emergence of Concentrated Poverty: Metropolitan Trends in the 2000s, looks at the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas and neighborhoods where 40 percent or more of the residents were below the federal poverty level from 2000 through 2009. The neighborhoods are based on census tracts, areas which average about 4,000 residents and loosely follow neighborhood boundaries.
While the concentration of poor people was up in big cities and suburbs alike, the steepest increases were found in suburbs, where the growth of poor people in extremely poor neighborhoods outpaced big cities 41 to 17 percent.
Overall, the Great Lakes Region, which suffered from large losses in manufacturing jobs, fared the worst. Detroit, Toledo and Youngstown all saw the number of poor people living in extremely poor neighborhoods more than double.
Researchers say that looking at concentrations of poverty is important because people living in these neighborhoods don't have as much access to the resources -- good schools, health care, a safe environment and jobs - needed to improve their lives.
In Northeast Ohio, Coulton points to a dramatic rise in food stamp assistance in the suburbs, a key indicator that she watches closely. In Cuyahoga County, excluding Cleveland, the number of people receiving food stamps rose from 15,758 in 2000, to 27,031 in 2005 to 57,214 last year, according to numbers complied by Coulton's center.
Coulton and others attribute the severity of the region's poverty to the foreclosure crisis, job loss and cuts in pay.
In the seven-county Cleveland-Akron area, $6.9 billion in wage earnings has disappeared over the last ten years due to job loss and pay cuts, according to federal wage figures complied by George Zeller, a economic research analyst.
In our seven county area, $6.9 billion in wage earnings has disappeared from paychecks over the last ten years due to job loss and pay cuts, according to federal wage figures complied by George Zeller, a economic research analyst.
"Everyone has been hit hard by this," said Zeller, "but what's new is that the fastest growth in poverty has been in the suburbs, not the center city. We don't have a lot of infrastructure out there to help people."
No one knows this better than Stephen Wertheim, director of the United Way's 211/First Call for Help, a 24-hour referral service that helps people find emergency assistance.
From 2005 to 2010, calls from the suburbs increased 121 percent, Wertheim said. That compares with a 92 percent increase in calls from Cleveland.
Though Wertheim's staff handles calls from Cuyahoga, Medina, Geauga, Holmes and Wayne counties, everyone in Northeast Ohio can reach a 211/First Call for Help office by dialing 2-1-1 on their telephone.
According to Wertheim, the top requests for help last year - and the percent increase from 2005 - from suburban residents include: Utility assistance, 7,837 calls, up 143 percent; food pantries, 7,572 calls, up 97 percent; rent assistance, 3,081 calls, up 212 percent; and homeless shelters, 2,813 calls, up 46 percent.
The requests from the suburbs and Cleveland are now much the same, Wertheim said. "They have a lot to do with housing and families having big trouble staying together in these hard times," he added.
The Brookings Institute, based in Washington, D.C., is one of the nation's most respected public-policy think tanks. The poverty numbers released by Brookings differ from official federal poverty estimates released earlier this year because the Brookings reported focused on people living in neighborhoods with an overall poverty level of 40 percent or more.
At least 2.2 million more Americans now live in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage than at the start of the decade, Brookings found. The authors said the report's findings make a case that local, state, and national policies, from land-use and economic development to providing safety net services, need to be re-considered from a regional perspective.
"Everybody knows that we had a terrible downturn at the end of the decade with unemployment at a generational high," said Alan Berube, a Brookings researcher and co-author of the report. But Berube said the figures show that Cleveland and other similar areas went through a decade-long recession that created large numbers of neighborhoods of poor.
"Now layer on that a poor-performing school, high crime, worse health problems, limited access to jobs because there's no economic activity in the area," added Berube. "And these things make poverty more difficult for families to escape."
Hamilton County is struggling -- and the children are at risk
Child welfare agency in crisis
Levy or not, insiders say, kids 'at risk'
Cincinnati.com, Oct. 30, 2011
Five years of budget cuts, mass layoffs and millions set aside to pay a potential fine for bad bookkeeping has left the agency that cares for Hamilton County's abused and neglected children frayed and - according to its social workers - at the breaking point.
The county is asking voters to renew a Children's Services levy on Nov. 8 that would bring in $39.1 million a year. It would cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $50 a year, the same as the current levy.
Last week, the Job and Family Services agency found itself the target of two investigations into the beating death of 2-year-old Damarcus Jackson, who had recently been in the agency's care. He's the third toddler in 10 months and the 10th in eight years to die despite intervention from Hamilton County social workers.
No one is saying Job and Family Services' budget woes led to those deaths, but an Enquirer examination of the agency - based on ride-alongs with social workers, public records, and an interview with the agency's boss - revealed an overloaded system that lacks oversight, support staff and the technology that workers need to do their jobs.
Even before Damarcus' death, outsiders and the agency's workers acknowledged that children's safety could be at risk.
In the last three years, the Children's Services division has seen a 48 percent decrease in staff, from 460 employees in 2008 to 240 today.
In 2010, those 240 employees answered 66,207 calls to the county's emergency abuse hotline and served 15,839 children. At any one time the agency is helping one in 13 kids who live in the county. Those numbers have skyrocketed, and now each caseworker handles up to 20 kids - almost double the number that a national advocacy group has recommended as best practice.
"Basically, we're all doing twice as much work with half the resources," said county social worker Myra Wheeler. "Something has to go. It's mathematics.
"I can't imagine how it couldn't be," that children are at risk, Wheeler said. "There are not enough hours in the day."
The United Way of Greater Cincinnati has warned that giving the agency less money "would create significant risk for the children of Hamilton County."
"We believe that further funding cuts simply cannot be sustained without jeopardizing the safety of children in the community."
But Hamilton County commissioners authorized less money anyway. The previous levy brought in $40.8 million a year; the one on the Nov. 8 ballot will bring in slightly less: $39.1 million a year.
Job and Family Services director Moira Weir said she "hopes" children aren't at risk. But she's overseeing a Children's Services division that will have a 2012 budget of $71 million - $4 million less than last year and $30 million less than it had in 2007.
That's if the levy passes. If it doesn't, Board of Commissioners President Greg Hartmann said, "it would be a crisis for kids."
"It would be a huge challenge to come up with that money; we don't have $40 million just sitting around," Hartmann said.
JFS isn't the only agency suffering.
In the last four years, Hamilton County has slashed nearly 23 percent from its operating budget, bringing it to $208.4 million for 2012.
The county desperately needs more jail space, a new crime lab, and is struggling to pay for the upkeep of the county's two professional sports stadiums.
An Enquirer/SurveyUSA poll of 1,200 county residents found that 72 percent would vote for the levy. And about half of those willing to vote for it said they would have been willing to pay more. There's virtually no opposition to the levy; a series of levy hearings earlier this year attracted only supporters.
Weir said she'll work with what she's given. But, she said, "We've cut everywhere we can.
"We can never close our door," Weir said. "If a child needs placement, we will place that child."
The Enquirer spent time last month with three case workers - one who responds to emergency abuse calls, one who works with the kids immediately after being taken from their caregiver and another who works to reunite kids with their parents.
These long-time social workers offered a glimpse at a job where a routine work day might mean photographing horrific abuse, traipsing through filthy homes, and dealing with irate parents. They said recent cuts have made their job tougher.
Mother figure, friend and advocate
Joy Swing has a degree in mental health and human services and worked with kids in the welfare system for 20 years.
Her job title is Hamilton County JFS intake worker. But to the 15-year-old Elmwood Place teenager she's trying to find a home for this September morning, she's a mother figure, friend and advocate.
The teen boy was removed from his mother's care at age 13 after he was found living in a filthy home without working plumbing.
This day she picked him up from the Clifton group home where he's been living and headed to JFS's headquarters in downtown Cincinnati for a meeting of everyone involved in the teen's life.
The goal: find him a permanent home.
The teen, in black tennis shoes, a T-shirt and gym shorts, talked in staccato tones.
Alone with Swing, he spoke in a high staccato voice, telling her about school (it's going well), life in the group home (boring) and his need for a winter coat and bus pass (he walks to school).
In the meeting, it's clear: Swing knows everything about the teen and about the case.
She nixed the idea of a teacher mentor, because although the teacher is a good role model, he likely doesn't understand the commitment a mentor must make. And she chastised his sister for putting the needs of her former husband ahead of her children and brother.
She reminds everyone: "He can be a success."
The job has gotten harder, she said.
In the early 1990s she saw dirty homes, kids left alone, and parents drunk or using marijuana.
"Now, we have kids with mental health issues, parents doing drugs they can't get off of and just really bad abuse cases," Swing said.
Too many cases, and out of date technology
Ahead of having to set the amount of money the levy would bring in, county commissioners paid the Bethesda, Md.-based TATC consulting $89,000 to look at the agency.
It found:
The consultant recommended buying laptop computers, iPads and netbooks - computers they can use during home visits for data entry, reports and email.
The report said those tools could increase productivity so much it would be the equivalent of having an extra 20 to 24 full-time employees. Based on that, the county's Tax Levy Review Committee recommended the agency spend up to $750,000 on technology to "increase productivity" in the Children's Services division.
• Until last year, a crew of workers took kids to parent meetings, court, doctor's appointments, and to get basic things like a winter coats. That service was eliminated last year. Now social workers make those trips themselves, time that could be spent checking on other kids.
• There have been no raises in four years.
Hamilton County Job and Family Services' budget has dropped from $105 million in 2007 to $57 million this year; its staff reduced from 1,638 two years ago to 797 today.
In 2010 the agency stopped recruiting and training its own foster families, instead contracting oversight of them to outside agencies. The workers who had been recruiting, training and running background checks on foster families were shifted to more urgent work - investigating abuse and neglect.
The Children's Services Program is just one of four divisions run by Hamilton County's JFS department.
It is funded by the levy and with matching state and federal money.
The county JFS was re-accredited in May by the New York-based Council on Accreditation
The levy was first passed in 1981 and comes up for renewal every five years.
It has never lost.
In 2006, it passed with 68 percent of the vote.
Hamilton County commissioners set the amount of money the levy brings in.
Last year homes were re-valued, resulting in an overall decrease in values. As a result, the same level of taxation next year will bring in $39.1 million, about $1.7 million less than the levy brought in this year.
That also means there are fewer dollars that can be used to seek matching government grants.
"It was appropriate not to raise property taxes in the difficult economy we're in," said Hartmann, who wants people to vote for the levy. "It's fiscal responsibility applied to the levy."
Complicating Children's Services finances: the county has been setting aside levy cash that's meant to help kids.
Through public records, The Enquirer has learned that by the end of the year, Job and Family Services will have socked away $28.6 million dollars from the levy.
The agency says some of it is so they have cash on hand, but that they are also saving ahead of a potential penalty for irregular bookkeeping between 2000 and 2004 over how it spent federal money intended to cover foster-care expenses, said JFS spokesman Brian Gregg.
An eventual settlement could exceed $60 million, according to one county estimate.
Three separate agency reviews have suggested the county set cash aside.
Both a county-paid expert hired to review the levy and the county's Tax Levy Review Committee say saving dollars for the potential repayment of money to the federal government is a good idea.
And a private forensic accounting firm hired by the county also suggested JFS start saving for the eventual payout.
Other Southwest Ohio counties have not cut their children's services divisions as much as Hamilton County.
Butler County cut its agency's budget by $2 million, or 7.3 percent over the last five years.
The staff has dropped from 198 to 181 - an 8.5 percent drop. Most of the cuts were in administration; hiring has been frozen this year.
In Clermont County, the budget is actually up $1.2 million or 9.8 percent over the last five years.
They have 56 employees - two more than in 2007.
They do what she says, or don't get kids back
Don't let Myra Wheeler's 5-foot, 4-inch height fool you. When she confronts a pot-smoking mother or a mother who lets her boyfriend abuse her four kids, they're going to do what she says.
Or they won't get their kids back.
Wheeler, who has 24 years of experience, is a caseworker in the Children's Services division. That means she's the one who makes sure parents are doing what the court wants them to do. Getting kids back almost always hinges on her recommendation.
The day The Enquirer shadowed her, she had 21 cases. National guidelines suggest she should have no more than 17 cases at one time.
"I've never had that few," Wheeler said. "The lowest I ever had was 16, and that was for about five minutes."
The Child Welfare League of America recommends, depending on the type of case, that social workers handle anywhere from 10 to 17 families per one social worker.
"We can't decide not to help a child because we don't have enough workers; we do the best we can," Wheeler said.
One recent day she climbed into her Toyota Sienna with 201,000 miles on the odometer and a GPS stuck to the windshield - a make-shift office with coffee in the cup holder, her cellphone at her side.
She'll be in and out of it for the next nine hours.
She won't stop for lunch.
She drops in unexpectedly on a 27-year-old pregnant mom of four who had her kids taken away because she allowed her boyfriend to tie them to beds and beat them with sticks.
Groggy, having just woken up and wrapped in a blanket, she watches as Wheeler plays detective.
She looks in every room and closet, looking for clues the boyfriend is still around.
The woman admits the bad boyfriend has been giving her food and furniture, though she's quick to add she would never let him around her kids.
"You can make whatever choice you want. You're a grown woman," Wheeler says. "He still has access to your home, he's still a safety threat, and I will report that to the court. I'm just being honest with you."
The woman says nothing.
A child with black eyes, and a family living in filth...
Ground zero for most child-abuse complaints is 241-KIDS, named for the telephone number people are supposed to call when they suspect child abuse.
Budget cuts mean that these days, workers also respond to adult-abuse allegations.
Answering the phone: 10 social workers, who then follow up in person within 24 hours.
Jeff Fielman, an after-hours in-take worker, stops in at the 241-KIDS office Downtown at the beginning of his Friday night shift, then heads out with a list of allegations to investigate.
A Cleves 11-year-old with two black eyes; a Miami Township boy with cuts on his head; and a Northside family living in filth top his to-do list this warm evening.
Fielman has a college degree in criminal justice, worked with sex offenders at the county's juvenile detention home and served in the military. And, he's tall and muscular.
That's helpful when he's knocking on strangers' doors in the middle of the night. Or when a parent says, "No, you can't take my kid."
The first family isn't home - another worker will go back in the morning.
At the second home - where he finds Grandma baby-sitting the seven kids - he interviews the boy and his siblings.
He high-fives the boys and talks backyard football, all while asking important questions like where the cut came from and whether they felt comfortable with their mom and dad.
Turns out, it's just a football injury.
It grows dark, and addresses are difficult to read.
Fielman doesn't stop.
The father of the family accused of having a dirty home won't let him in.
But, at Fielman's insistence, the father does bring the three kids outside.
They are clean, talkative and report no problems.
Fielman confers by cellphone with a prosecutor, and the two agree: somebody can return in the morning when Dad was willing to show a social worker around.
"My only goal is to make kids safe who are currently in unsafe conditions," he said.
Levy or not, insiders say, kids 'at risk'
Cincinnati.com, Oct. 30, 2011
Five years of budget cuts, mass layoffs and millions set aside to pay a potential fine for bad bookkeeping has left the agency that cares for Hamilton County's abused and neglected children frayed and - according to its social workers - at the breaking point.
The county is asking voters to renew a Children's Services levy on Nov. 8 that would bring in $39.1 million a year. It would cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $50 a year, the same as the current levy.
Last week, the Job and Family Services agency found itself the target of two investigations into the beating death of 2-year-old Damarcus Jackson, who had recently been in the agency's care. He's the third toddler in 10 months and the 10th in eight years to die despite intervention from Hamilton County social workers.
No one is saying Job and Family Services' budget woes led to those deaths, but an Enquirer examination of the agency - based on ride-alongs with social workers, public records, and an interview with the agency's boss - revealed an overloaded system that lacks oversight, support staff and the technology that workers need to do their jobs.
Even before Damarcus' death, outsiders and the agency's workers acknowledged that children's safety could be at risk.
In the last three years, the Children's Services division has seen a 48 percent decrease in staff, from 460 employees in 2008 to 240 today.
In 2010, those 240 employees answered 66,207 calls to the county's emergency abuse hotline and served 15,839 children. At any one time the agency is helping one in 13 kids who live in the county. Those numbers have skyrocketed, and now each caseworker handles up to 20 kids - almost double the number that a national advocacy group has recommended as best practice.
"Basically, we're all doing twice as much work with half the resources," said county social worker Myra Wheeler. "Something has to go. It's mathematics.
"I can't imagine how it couldn't be," that children are at risk, Wheeler said. "There are not enough hours in the day."
The United Way of Greater Cincinnati has warned that giving the agency less money "would create significant risk for the children of Hamilton County."
"We believe that further funding cuts simply cannot be sustained without jeopardizing the safety of children in the community."
But Hamilton County commissioners authorized less money anyway. The previous levy brought in $40.8 million a year; the one on the Nov. 8 ballot will bring in slightly less: $39.1 million a year.
Job and Family Services director Moira Weir said she "hopes" children aren't at risk. But she's overseeing a Children's Services division that will have a 2012 budget of $71 million - $4 million less than last year and $30 million less than it had in 2007.
That's if the levy passes. If it doesn't, Board of Commissioners President Greg Hartmann said, "it would be a crisis for kids."
"It would be a huge challenge to come up with that money; we don't have $40 million just sitting around," Hartmann said.
JFS isn't the only agency suffering.
In the last four years, Hamilton County has slashed nearly 23 percent from its operating budget, bringing it to $208.4 million for 2012.
The county desperately needs more jail space, a new crime lab, and is struggling to pay for the upkeep of the county's two professional sports stadiums.
An Enquirer/SurveyUSA poll of 1,200 county residents found that 72 percent would vote for the levy. And about half of those willing to vote for it said they would have been willing to pay more. There's virtually no opposition to the levy; a series of levy hearings earlier this year attracted only supporters.
Weir said she'll work with what she's given. But, she said, "We've cut everywhere we can.
"We can never close our door," Weir said. "If a child needs placement, we will place that child."
The Enquirer spent time last month with three case workers - one who responds to emergency abuse calls, one who works with the kids immediately after being taken from their caregiver and another who works to reunite kids with their parents.
These long-time social workers offered a glimpse at a job where a routine work day might mean photographing horrific abuse, traipsing through filthy homes, and dealing with irate parents. They said recent cuts have made their job tougher.
Mother figure, friend and advocate
Joy Swing has a degree in mental health and human services and worked with kids in the welfare system for 20 years.
Her job title is Hamilton County JFS intake worker. But to the 15-year-old Elmwood Place teenager she's trying to find a home for this September morning, she's a mother figure, friend and advocate.
The teen boy was removed from his mother's care at age 13 after he was found living in a filthy home without working plumbing.
This day she picked him up from the Clifton group home where he's been living and headed to JFS's headquarters in downtown Cincinnati for a meeting of everyone involved in the teen's life.
The goal: find him a permanent home.
The teen, in black tennis shoes, a T-shirt and gym shorts, talked in staccato tones.
Alone with Swing, he spoke in a high staccato voice, telling her about school (it's going well), life in the group home (boring) and his need for a winter coat and bus pass (he walks to school).
In the meeting, it's clear: Swing knows everything about the teen and about the case.
She nixed the idea of a teacher mentor, because although the teacher is a good role model, he likely doesn't understand the commitment a mentor must make. And she chastised his sister for putting the needs of her former husband ahead of her children and brother.
She reminds everyone: "He can be a success."
The job has gotten harder, she said.
In the early 1990s she saw dirty homes, kids left alone, and parents drunk or using marijuana.
"Now, we have kids with mental health issues, parents doing drugs they can't get off of and just really bad abuse cases," Swing said.
Too many cases, and out of date technology
Ahead of having to set the amount of money the levy would bring in, county commissioners paid the Bethesda, Md.-based TATC consulting $89,000 to look at the agency.
It found:
- Caseloads have skyrocketed - from 12.7 children per staff member in 2008 to 20.1 children last year.
One social worker showed The Enquirer a list of her 55 cases. - One national advocacy group, the Washington-based Child Welfare League of America, says social workers should have no more than 12 active cases per month.
- Out-of-date technology. After criss-crossing the county helping kids, social workers have to head downtown to desktop computers.
The consultant recommended buying laptop computers, iPads and netbooks - computers they can use during home visits for data entry, reports and email.
The report said those tools could increase productivity so much it would be the equivalent of having an extra 20 to 24 full-time employees. Based on that, the county's Tax Levy Review Committee recommended the agency spend up to $750,000 on technology to "increase productivity" in the Children's Services division.
• Until last year, a crew of workers took kids to parent meetings, court, doctor's appointments, and to get basic things like a winter coats. That service was eliminated last year. Now social workers make those trips themselves, time that could be spent checking on other kids.
• There have been no raises in four years.
Hamilton County Job and Family Services' budget has dropped from $105 million in 2007 to $57 million this year; its staff reduced from 1,638 two years ago to 797 today.
In 2010 the agency stopped recruiting and training its own foster families, instead contracting oversight of them to outside agencies. The workers who had been recruiting, training and running background checks on foster families were shifted to more urgent work - investigating abuse and neglect.
The Children's Services Program is just one of four divisions run by Hamilton County's JFS department.
It is funded by the levy and with matching state and federal money.
The county JFS was re-accredited in May by the New York-based Council on Accreditation
The levy was first passed in 1981 and comes up for renewal every five years.
It has never lost.
In 2006, it passed with 68 percent of the vote.
Hamilton County commissioners set the amount of money the levy brings in.
Last year homes were re-valued, resulting in an overall decrease in values. As a result, the same level of taxation next year will bring in $39.1 million, about $1.7 million less than the levy brought in this year.
That also means there are fewer dollars that can be used to seek matching government grants.
"It was appropriate not to raise property taxes in the difficult economy we're in," said Hartmann, who wants people to vote for the levy. "It's fiscal responsibility applied to the levy."
Complicating Children's Services finances: the county has been setting aside levy cash that's meant to help kids.
Through public records, The Enquirer has learned that by the end of the year, Job and Family Services will have socked away $28.6 million dollars from the levy.
The agency says some of it is so they have cash on hand, but that they are also saving ahead of a potential penalty for irregular bookkeeping between 2000 and 2004 over how it spent federal money intended to cover foster-care expenses, said JFS spokesman Brian Gregg.
An eventual settlement could exceed $60 million, according to one county estimate.
Three separate agency reviews have suggested the county set cash aside.
Both a county-paid expert hired to review the levy and the county's Tax Levy Review Committee say saving dollars for the potential repayment of money to the federal government is a good idea.
And a private forensic accounting firm hired by the county also suggested JFS start saving for the eventual payout.
Other Southwest Ohio counties have not cut their children's services divisions as much as Hamilton County.
Butler County cut its agency's budget by $2 million, or 7.3 percent over the last five years.
The staff has dropped from 198 to 181 - an 8.5 percent drop. Most of the cuts were in administration; hiring has been frozen this year.
In Clermont County, the budget is actually up $1.2 million or 9.8 percent over the last five years.
They have 56 employees - two more than in 2007.
They do what she says, or don't get kids back
Don't let Myra Wheeler's 5-foot, 4-inch height fool you. When she confronts a pot-smoking mother or a mother who lets her boyfriend abuse her four kids, they're going to do what she says.
Or they won't get their kids back.
Wheeler, who has 24 years of experience, is a caseworker in the Children's Services division. That means she's the one who makes sure parents are doing what the court wants them to do. Getting kids back almost always hinges on her recommendation.
The day The Enquirer shadowed her, she had 21 cases. National guidelines suggest she should have no more than 17 cases at one time.
"I've never had that few," Wheeler said. "The lowest I ever had was 16, and that was for about five minutes."
The Child Welfare League of America recommends, depending on the type of case, that social workers handle anywhere from 10 to 17 families per one social worker.
"We can't decide not to help a child because we don't have enough workers; we do the best we can," Wheeler said.
One recent day she climbed into her Toyota Sienna with 201,000 miles on the odometer and a GPS stuck to the windshield - a make-shift office with coffee in the cup holder, her cellphone at her side.
She'll be in and out of it for the next nine hours.
She won't stop for lunch.
She drops in unexpectedly on a 27-year-old pregnant mom of four who had her kids taken away because she allowed her boyfriend to tie them to beds and beat them with sticks.
Groggy, having just woken up and wrapped in a blanket, she watches as Wheeler plays detective.
She looks in every room and closet, looking for clues the boyfriend is still around.
The woman admits the bad boyfriend has been giving her food and furniture, though she's quick to add she would never let him around her kids.
"You can make whatever choice you want. You're a grown woman," Wheeler says. "He still has access to your home, he's still a safety threat, and I will report that to the court. I'm just being honest with you."
The woman says nothing.
A child with black eyes, and a family living in filth...
Ground zero for most child-abuse complaints is 241-KIDS, named for the telephone number people are supposed to call when they suspect child abuse.
Budget cuts mean that these days, workers also respond to adult-abuse allegations.
Answering the phone: 10 social workers, who then follow up in person within 24 hours.
Jeff Fielman, an after-hours in-take worker, stops in at the 241-KIDS office Downtown at the beginning of his Friday night shift, then heads out with a list of allegations to investigate.
A Cleves 11-year-old with two black eyes; a Miami Township boy with cuts on his head; and a Northside family living in filth top his to-do list this warm evening.
Fielman has a college degree in criminal justice, worked with sex offenders at the county's juvenile detention home and served in the military. And, he's tall and muscular.
That's helpful when he's knocking on strangers' doors in the middle of the night. Or when a parent says, "No, you can't take my kid."
The first family isn't home - another worker will go back in the morning.
At the second home - where he finds Grandma baby-sitting the seven kids - he interviews the boy and his siblings.
He high-fives the boys and talks backyard football, all while asking important questions like where the cut came from and whether they felt comfortable with their mom and dad.
Turns out, it's just a football injury.
It grows dark, and addresses are difficult to read.
Fielman doesn't stop.
The father of the family accused of having a dirty home won't let him in.
But, at Fielman's insistence, the father does bring the three kids outside.
They are clean, talkative and report no problems.
Fielman confers by cellphone with a prosecutor, and the two agree: somebody can return in the morning when Dad was willing to show a social worker around.
"My only goal is to make kids safe who are currently in unsafe conditions," he said.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Hamilton County Children Services Needs Funding and Community Support
Report: Children services in Cincinnati stretched
Associated Press, Oct. 30, 2011
CINCINNATI — A newspaper reports that $30 million in funding cuts and a 48 percent reduction in staff in recent years have led to case overloads and other problems at the Cincinnati-area children's services agency that has seen three toddlers die in 10 months.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports Sunday (http://cin.ci/s9us1W) that interviews and a review of records show the Hamilton County Job and Family Services is overburdened and lacks oversight, support staff and needed technology.
The newspaper review comes as the agency undergoes an independent review and days after a prosecutor said he'd seek the death penalty against a Cincinnati father accused in the abuse death earlier this month of his 2-year-old son, who had been reunited with his birth parents in August after nearly 2 years in foster care.
The Enquirer finds that two additional toddlers have died since December despite intervention from Hamilton County workers: The father of one boy, who was almost 3, has been charged with murder and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty; no charges have been filed in the death of a seven-month-old child in foster care, though a coroner said the baby suffered obvious abuse.
A total of 10 children with cases through the agency have died over the past eight years, the review showed.
Staffing in the division has dropped 48 percent since 2008, from 460 to 240. Last year, employees answered more than 66,000 calls to the county emergency abuse hotline and assisted about 16,000 children.
The newspaper says that the agency is helping one in 13 county children at any given time, with each caseworker handling up to 20 children, nearly double the amount recommended by an advocacy group.
"Basically, we're all doing twice as much work with half the resources," county social worker Myra Wheeler tells the newspaper. "Something has to go. It's mathematics."
Job and Family Services director Moira Weir said a levy up for renewal on next week's election will help the Children's Services division reach a 2012 budget of $71 million, $4 million less than last year and $30 million less than 2007.
The renewal would bring in about $39 million annually and if it doesn't pass "it would be a crisis for kids," said County Board President Greg Hartmann.
The previous levy brought in about $41 million a year.
Giving the agency less money "would create significant risk for the children of Hamilton County," according to The United Way of Greater Cincinnati.
Weir said the agency will never close its doors to children and will have to work with what it's given. But, she said, "We've cut everywhere we can."
Associated Press, Oct. 30, 2011
CINCINNATI — A newspaper reports that $30 million in funding cuts and a 48 percent reduction in staff in recent years have led to case overloads and other problems at the Cincinnati-area children's services agency that has seen three toddlers die in 10 months.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports Sunday (http://cin.ci/s9us1W) that interviews and a review of records show the Hamilton County Job and Family Services is overburdened and lacks oversight, support staff and needed technology.
The newspaper review comes as the agency undergoes an independent review and days after a prosecutor said he'd seek the death penalty against a Cincinnati father accused in the abuse death earlier this month of his 2-year-old son, who had been reunited with his birth parents in August after nearly 2 years in foster care.
The Enquirer finds that two additional toddlers have died since December despite intervention from Hamilton County workers: The father of one boy, who was almost 3, has been charged with murder and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty; no charges have been filed in the death of a seven-month-old child in foster care, though a coroner said the baby suffered obvious abuse.
A total of 10 children with cases through the agency have died over the past eight years, the review showed.
Staffing in the division has dropped 48 percent since 2008, from 460 to 240. Last year, employees answered more than 66,000 calls to the county emergency abuse hotline and assisted about 16,000 children.
The newspaper says that the agency is helping one in 13 county children at any given time, with each caseworker handling up to 20 children, nearly double the amount recommended by an advocacy group.
"Basically, we're all doing twice as much work with half the resources," county social worker Myra Wheeler tells the newspaper. "Something has to go. It's mathematics."
Job and Family Services director Moira Weir said a levy up for renewal on next week's election will help the Children's Services division reach a 2012 budget of $71 million, $4 million less than last year and $30 million less than 2007.
The renewal would bring in about $39 million annually and if it doesn't pass "it would be a crisis for kids," said County Board President Greg Hartmann.
The previous levy brought in about $41 million a year.
Giving the agency less money "would create significant risk for the children of Hamilton County," according to The United Way of Greater Cincinnati.
Weir said the agency will never close its doors to children and will have to work with what it's given. But, she said, "We've cut everywhere we can."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
