The report is largely a review of many previous Grand Jury reports about Family and Children’s Services, highlighting low staffing, stagnant recruitment, and the resulting overwork of existing staff, who are unable to meet their obligations. The report focuses on the emotional damage inflicted on children and families when their cases drag on indefinitely, as well as the high levels of stress experienced by social workers who can’t complete their tasks in a timely manner. The short work week also came in for plenty of criticism, with the Grand Jury recommending that offices be open on Fridays. And it highlights large percentages of Native American children receiving the services of a system characterized as broken.
The stakes are high. According to the California Department of Public Health, Center for Healthy Communities, high levels of stress and trauma during childhood, known as Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, can have lifelong effects on physical and mental health and financial well-being. The Grand Jury declares that, “Children and families entering the court system and trying to wend their way through the maze of lawyers, social workers, judges, etc., are experiencing toxic stress on top of the ACEs that have been complicating their existence.”
There have been six reports about children’s services since 1999, including one last year that noted low staffing and overwork among social workers. Another of last year’s reports took a close look at the county’s Human Resources practices overall. That one recommended creating an ombudsman position, “an independent and impartial official who serves as a mediator or advocate to resolve conflicts and address concerns within an organization, ensuring fairness and protecting individuals' rights.” The ombuds program for children has not been implemented. The county does have an ombudsman for aging and adult services.
The racial disparities at Family and Children’s Services are a grave concern. Using the county’s case management and child welfare data, the report cites that, though 6.6% of the county’s population is Native American, 29.2% of the children placed in emergency transitional care are Native. Native children comprise 19% of Family and Children’s Services court cases, and 24% of the children in foster care in Mendocino County. The report recommends that the department improve relations and communication with representatives of the Indian Child Welfare Act, which regulates the placement of Native children due to a long history of unnecessary removals and outright abductions.
This year’s investigation was sparked in part by complaints about late court reports, which leave children and families in the limbo of temporary placements and delayed court proceedings. Among the definitions for terms that are heavily relied upon are moral injury, which occurs when social workers are unable to effectively address the difficulties they are tasked with solving; and burnout, “A state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.” Family and Children’s Services has a 29.3% vacancy rate, and in February of last year, a staff of 58 worked 507 hours of overtime. High levels of overtime were also noted in a report from ten years ago.
The department also suffers from a misalignment of skills. The county has a waiver that allows it to hire staff who do not have degrees in social work. But there is also a shortage of lower-level workers who can do things like drive children around. This leads to more highly qualified staff performing comparatively unskilled tasks.
Employees who were interviewed for the investigation characterize the work culture as “toxic,” with high rates of absenteeism due to stress, medical leave and high turnover. According to the report, “The FCS approach to hiring social workers was described as “churn them out and burn them out.” Staffing needs are addressed by allowing and encouraging overtime for current workers rather than hiring additional staff. In many cases, hiring for job positions is on hold.”
Family and Children’s Services offices are closed Fridays, which means that anything that comes up at the end of the week is delayed until Monday. The report notes that, “if one workday is removed from each week, in one month one week will have been lost,” denying the public access to the department’s services for those days. The Grand Jury recommended staggering employees’ schedules so that some social workers are available on Fridays.
By far the greatest obstacle is a shortage of staff. This is caused by comparatively low salaries and a recruitment process where applicants can wait up to six months from the time of application to their hiring date. This was also noted in a report from the 2012-2013 season.
The Grand Jury also learned that local social workers provide services to children who come from Mendocino County but are placed in adjacent counties. The social workers’ monthly visits sometimes take them away from the office for two days at a time. When they get back, they are expected to catch up on all the work they missed while they were gone, which “contributes to late reports and missed deadlines.” The Grand Jury asserts that there are are no consequences for missing deadlines, and no incentives for meeting them. There is also no quality assurance office at the department, though a system improvement plan is supposedly going through an approval process. The Grand Jury believes that, based on outcomes in other counties, a monthly quality assurance review would improve the performance of the local department.
The Grand Jury believes that the county can afford to properly staff the department, though this year’s report notes that, “It is difficult to decipher the FCS budget. Lack of specific line items causes lack of transparency and understanding of how the money is used.”
Returning to the topic of delayed reports and extended court proceedings, the Grand Jury warned that, “When FCS fails to meet legally mandated timelines for the filing of court reports, they are not providing the children and families with due process, possibly creating a civil rights violation liability for Mendocino County.” The 23 recommendations range from hiring more staff and increasing salaries to offering training on a state-wide computer system. The Grand Jury expects the majority of its recommendations be implemented by October of this year.