Jefferson County DSS adds unit to Child Protective Services
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Jefferson County Department of Social Services’ Child Protective Services staff has found it tough to keep up with state mandates and added paperwork, so the department developed another CPS unit to ease the burden.
Social Services Commissioner Laura C. Cerow said the unit will add only three positions to CPS, which will restructure from three units with seven workers to four units with six workers. Each unit consists of a supervisor, senior caseworker, caseworkers and clerical staff.
“We’ve struggled for more than a couple of years to keep up with mandates, contracts and paperwork,” she said, when reached by telephone Monday. “Our numbers kept going up.”
Child protective services calls in Jefferson County increased from 1,634 in 2006 to 2,206 in 2011. New laws and mandated reporter training, among other reasons, were why numbers had increased in the county and statewide, Mrs. Cerow said. The department’s CPS caseload includes sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect.
The new CPS unit adds one supervisor, one senior caseworker and a caseworker. But, that doesn’t mean three added positions within the Social Services Department. Mrs. Cerow said staff shuffled from other DSS departments.
“The state Department of Health was supposed to be taking over Medicaid, and they were supposed to take over this summer,” she said. “The idea was it’d continue to take some workload for us.”
CPS supervisors had too many workers to supervise since their caseloads had been increasing, Mrs. Cerow said.
Knowing the caseload was increasing when the state Health Department move was also to occur, Mrs. Cerow said, she sought approval to have three positions from the department’s Medicaid/financial side transferred to child welfare.
“Then, DOH came in and said, ‘We’re having trouble with this and we need to give it back,’” she said. “Hopefully, DOH will take it back in June; that’s what I heard.”
She said CPS work and Family Court have been more hands-on with detail than when she was a caseworker years ago.
