State tries to ease social workers' load

A mom drove to the methadone clinic drunk, with her 3-year-old in the car. She was cited and the clinic told her she had to find someplace else for treatment soon. The car was towed.

Now Child Protective Services social worker Lori VanClifford is on the phone looking for another clinic for the woman before she's forced to go cold turkey after six years of addiction to methadone, a prescribed substitute for more powerful drugs like heroin.

"Is this the answer I'm going to get from the rest of them, that there's a month to month-and-a-half waiting list?" VanClifford asks. Then she leaves a message for another clinic: "I'm trying to keep it together so that she can keep her kids in her home."

A new report said the state needs 1,540 more people like VanClifford.

That's how many new positions it would take to do all the work assigned to the Children's Administration, or at least to do it properly, according to the study by American Humane, a nonprofit organization based in Colorado.

New social workers

State officials — who have hired 400 new social workers in the last three years — say adding 1,100 more isn't likely anytime soon. There are 1,850 social workers in the agency.

Gov. Christine Gregoire supported the hiring boom and asked the Legislature to speed up hiring the last 90 workers next year. But she didn't ask for more.

"It's not all about bodies. It's about 'What are the practices of those who do the work?' " said Gregoire. She wants the Children's Administration to make the best use of social workers' time.

"The other thing is, I don't know that we can hire that many and train that many," Gregoire added, noting the pool of available social workers is shrinking.

An hour and a half after leaving her morning messages, VanClifford emerges from a home in a Thurston County trailer park, smelling faintly of feces.

She checked on a report of unsanitary living conditions for children, speaking to a mother and her developmentally disabled son.

"It's nauseating," she said, the odor lingering on her clothes and filling her state-issued Dodge sedan. But the home wasn't as bad as the tip to Child Protective Services suggested; dogs might be causing the smell.

Of more concern to VanClifford is the mother's statement that her adult son has been physically aggressive.

She will ask for two home-support specialists to visit the mother together, for safety's sake.

"One social worker can't make that much change. If we can all get together, we can make a difference," VanClifford said. She lives in Lewis County, has been doing this work for nine years, and says it's a calling.

"At times it can be somewhat overwhelming. But that's true of all work," VanClifford said, driving back to the Tumwater offices of the Children's Administration. "The years we don't have money — those are awful."

Union representation

The union that represents the social workers, the Washington Federation of State Employees, has met with agency officials. But spokesman Tim Welch said the union will also look for answers in the upcoming meeting of the Legislature.

"I don't think it's realistic that the Children's Administration is going to hire 1,200 more employees," Welch said. "But clearly something has got to give."

Gap below other states

Washington would need to hire more than one worker for every two now employed, according to the study, a gap that is actually below those in typical states, said John Fluke, director of child-protection research center for American Humane.

More notable, Fluke said, is the amount of the need driven by a new policy requiring social workers to visit with each child under supervision at least once a month.

The monthly visit is not only a goal of Gregoire's, but a requirement under a lawsuit settlement over the quality of the state's foster-care system.

"I think that was probably the most significant thing that we've found in this study," Fluke said. "There hasn't always been that kind of expectation at a policy level."

Indeed, one thing VanClifford will not do during a day of being followed by The Olympian is make a personal visit to a child, although she said she usually makes monthly visits with kids she is watching.

Back at the office, she conferred with fellow social worker Rebecca Neal, a 10-year-veteran of the office. Neal is concerned about a report from another state office: a woman who has lost all her previous children due to neglect charges now has a newborn.

The baby tested clean for drugs, but Neal met the mother and tells VanClifford that she has "teeth like pegs," a sign of possible methamphetamine use.

Voluntary placement

The social workers decide to ask the parents to enter a voluntary placement agreement, which would give custody of the infant to a relative, but allow the parents to rescind the agreement at any time. It is a faster route than asking the court for permission to intervene.

Asked about the workload, Neal said it was much higher when she was working near Aberdeen.

"If you have 50 cases and you have foster parents calling you, you have lawyers calling you, you have parents calling you, you worry, are the kids safe?" she said.

Two children starved to death in 2004 in King County while their mother was on a drinking binge. The caseworker who received reports of abuse in the home had a caseload of 49, according to a later report.

Less than six months later, the Children's Administration announced it had overspent its budget by $12 million.

"Back then, it was 'Look, this situation is horrible; what are you going to do about it?' And we didn't have any answers, and [parents] didn't have any answers," Neal said.

After that crisis, Gregoire supported the hiring of Cheryl Stephani as head of the Children's Administration and charged her with making sure the state responded to emergency reports of abuse within 24 hours.

At the same time, the number of children under state supervision has risen, from 9,000 in 2004 to about 10,000 now.

Before it hires more social workers, the Children's Administration wants to streamline their routines, said Stephani. That could include finding ways to keep social workers from waiting in court, and a new case-management computer due next fall.

The workload report is perhaps most valuable for putting numbers to the things staff have been saying for years, Stephani said.

"It independently verifies things that we were seeing and staff were talking about," she said. "It lets us know how hard people are working, and the gap that still remains to get all the things done that are required."

Both VanClifford and Neal say their agency doesn't necessarily need more social workers, but they could use some more help with the paperwork.

"I would say half of my time is clerical duties," said VanClifford.

VanClifford later met the mother who needed to find a new methadone clinic, a drug-treatment specialist from Providence St. Peter Hospital, and a special advocate for the woman. Throughout the meeting, the young mother alternately rubbed her thighs and laid her head on the desk, saying her withdrawal symptoms had already started. She agreed to whatever help she could get.

Surviving crisis

Afterword, VanClifford held her thumb and forefinger a quarter-inch apart and said, "She's this close to losing her kids."

But the family might survive the crisis. VanClifford volunteered to take the woman to her methadone clinic the next day, and, by signing a few forms, kept the mother's lights on and telephone working by paying $450 in overdue bills.

More than the workload, she wants to hang on to funding for the services that help parents. The workload, heavy or light, you learn to deal with, VanClifford said.

"It's part of life: Sometimes you have money, sometimes you don't," she said. "Right now we're in a fat time, but lean times will come again. Why worry about it now?"