We hear quite regularly, how child protective services destroy the lives of families. Today, though just once let's take a peek at what it's like being an employee of CPS.
What Shawna's experience is like
Shawna is an Employee of Oklahoma DEPARTMENT of HUMAN SERVICES, where she works as a CPS case manager. When asked about her thoughts on what children in her caseload, she states she is "unsure if most of them are safe. " It's a genuine concern, because Shawna obviously has best interest in protecting children from abusive or neglectful families.
She goes on to explain that her caseloads are so numerous that she often works 20 hours, often not being able to balance her work and family life. She tells a local news agency in Oklahoma that she handles 60-70 cases per week...
The real problem begins above workers paygrade
Shawna states that working 60-70 cases per week, is a violation of the "pinnacle plan" which states that case workers are only to take on a maximum of 12 cases per week.
typical case load for a DHS employee for a week.
Src
She also notes the concern that errors and shortcuts are taken to close cases. Case workers are expected to handle and close cases in 30-60 days. What makes this troubling according to her peers is that the agency reports a 75% compliance in case load management.
She goes on to state that when an employee leaves or is fired, the agency makes it look as if the worker closed all the cases that where active to keep the numbers up.
She states many of her peers are turning to drugs and alcohol to keep up with the stress. "We are responsible for these children if anything bad happens to them, while we have their case. At any given time there is a rolling backlog for 60 days worth of cases."
opinion
After Shawna's story, I can see that there are good people out there trying to help innocent children. One can also see that directors and higher up have a pure interest in numbers and funding. I personally, do not think i could cope with the stress some of these workers face. Thinking, how can these people blow the whistle? How many want to blow the whistle, but have nowhere to turn? These are good hearted people (generally) but misguided by internal policy/education, that have to succumb to impossible scenarios. This is why corruption and deception happens. It also demonstrates this is top down.
Shawna's story is that workers are ordered to take on all these caseloads.Many would think hire more workers, but THIS IS NOT A SOLUTION. Maybe, we should end the war on families and instead entertain the responsibility of rehabilitating problematic parents when needed. This would be my request, that families stop being torn apart by an evil system.
What this spoke to me is the top of the agency is corrupted and if workers are truly turning to drugs to cope with work, why are they still taking children from homes for same cause?
As always let me know with your thoughts below.
100% of steem/sbd will goto #familyprotection
QUOTE:
See, this is where it becomes obvious to me that this Social Worker is brainwashed. The reason that her caseload is so high is because of all the pressure for "mandatory reporters" like teachers, child care workers, doctors, etc. to report any little thing that they come across. These 'reporters' are often worried that they will lose their jobs if they don't 'tell on' people.
The government already has thrown TONS of money to CPS and they already have many, many workers. So #1, these 'mandated reporters' should not be told to make so many useless reports. And #2, this Social Worker should be able to look at probably 75% of her case load and realize that it is hogwash, and that she needs to not even follow-up on it.
HOWEVER, we see a brainwashed Social Worker who believes that most parents are horrible. She may actually care for children, and she is stressing herself out silly thinking that most of the children on her caseload are in danger and it is on her shoulders if she doesn't do something about it. This makes her too eager to separate families, with no real evidence.
This social worker, if well-intentioned, needs a complete paradigm shift in her thinking. She needs to realize that #1 most parents are doing okay and love their children, and #2 that most children will be MUCH WORSE OFF in Foster Care than they are with their own parents.
You are correct that the answer is definitely not to hire more Social Workers so that they have time to hound more innocent parents and take away more innocent children from the only loving home that they know, and severly traumatize both children and parents.
A good point you raise here. I am beginning to see a pattern with medical reporters though using it as a club to force expensive treatments that are often unnecessary, using the threat of CPS to fatten their bank accounts.
Ending the war on families sure would help. Rehabilitation is an idea. But greed and money need to be taken out of the system. My personal opinion the CPS needs to be totally eliminated. There probably are a few good social workers out there, but sadly there overshadowed by a blanket of evil and Corruption from the rest of the CPS system. Thanks for sharing my friend.
A good thing to try to look at things also from the Social worker's viewpoint. As @canadian-coconut also commented she should be able to lighten her load by not wasting time with stupid complaints. If she has to follow up just make a quick visit to make sure everything is fine and leave it be like what @ginnyannette commented below. Let's just hope and pray with more and more cases going to court and getting into the spotlight that these people will start to become more aware of their actions.
I think there was a misunderstanding. From what i understand once a complaint is filed, they have to check it within 30-60 days. On paper it's made to look as if workers are carrying 12 per week... @hope777 what is the website for that advocacy group?
Thanks for your feedback ✌
I am not sure if you talk about parentalrights.org That is the one that I have been writing about.
Yep, thanks. I had .com was ... getting wrong page. Thanks again
I'm sure there are good people in the CPS, however their hands are tied by those they take orders from. If they do not learn to do as they are told they will be shown the door and replaced with someone who understands business as usual and not to ask questions, just do as they are told.
Last year around this time one of my in laws was having significant personal problems and asked us to take in her kids. CPS had not removed them, but had been present in their life in the past. So we suddenly had three little kids in addition to our own, life was chaotic for a week, and then we got the stomach flu. I was down for 12 hrs with it, which meant no housework got done. These kids were pretty wild, and consequently in that time frame there was toys, laundry, all kinds of stuff scattered through the entire house. It was a train wreck. And then, with the worst possible timing, CPS shows up, just to check on the kids to make sure they were in a safe place. I was honest with the lady in explaining the situation, and she said it was totally fine, and that they were satisfied. I was convinced she was lying, and freaked out for about two weeks. But she wasn't. I think she was a decent human being, and that it was obviously not unsafe in my house, just a child driven explosion :)
Anyway, based on my experience, I do think there are a lot of decent ones out there.
Wanted to convey a human element here. Also, there is a bigger picture that is never addressed which in nature is two fold... first if directors are the individuals forcing workers, then who is at the top? There is a vital missing part of the puzzle unconsidered. Two, i assume workers to be of a certain intelligence or perhaps parents as well...that being said, when they leave work its like resume the distractions and never question or even think to look at legality..just like everyone else, distractions.
The human element is important as it conveys that of hope, and perhaps a way to reverse engineer the problems that humankind face in these regards, by strengthing our communities and forming bonds with neighbors. More to it obviously, but thoughts and goals to strive for.
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