DENVER—Denver’s Department of Human Services didn’t deliver on a promise to hire 40 additional child-protection workers following the deaths of four children under department supervision, KMGH-TV reported.
Former department director Roxane White told a city council committee last year the agency needed extra staff to handle a heavy caseload. “We got to get these workers through training because kids’ lives are at stake,” White said at the Feb. 26, 2008, hearing. The City Council subsequently authorized $2 million for the new hires.
KMGH reviewed city records and determined DHS didn’t hire the workers.
“I think we ended up with a plus two or plus three” staff count, the current director, Pat Wilson-Pheanious, told the station after it provided Wilson-Pheanious with the data.
An external review found heavy caseloads were a factor in the deaths of four children in 2007 and 2008 and also contributed to high staff turnover at the department.
Wilson-Pheanious said the department has changed internal practices so the new hires are no longer needed. The department told the City Council it didn’t need the new hires after conducting a “detailed” analysis.
“What we have focused on are changes in practice, changes in supervision, changes in what we do when we intervene in a case … and how we make referrals to appropriate services,” Wilson-Pheanious said.
A department Web site, meanwhile, had stated that the agency had hired 36 case staff, two child welfare legal staff and two family crisis center workers.
“I had asked about it this summer and they said yes, we are hiring those individuals, so yeah I assumed they were at work,” said Councilman Doug Linkhart.
The department said child protection workloads averaged 18.7 cases per worker in December, above a national standard of 15 to 17 cases per worker. It later revised that figure to 14 cases per worker in Denver, KMGH said.
State figures show that between March and December, the department took on nearly 300 new cases.
“Caseloads are the heart and soul of the work being done in the department of social services,” said Shari Shink, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center. “Caseworkers are the people who are going out to the families. If you have a large caseload, you can’t manage it.”
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Information from: KMGH-TV,
