With the publication of its position paper, "Professionalizing the Public Child Welfare System: The Utilization of Social Workers in the New York City Child Welfare Administration," the Chapter has taken a major step in furthering its efforts to both protect and advance social work practice in the City.

The paper is particularly timely in light of the recent New York Times articles that called attention to the inadequate training at CWA and its consequences for the children and families served by the public child welfare system. While Chapter leadership welcomes CWA's recent announcement of its intent to hire 300 new caseworkers in protective services, the paper calls into question the effectiveness of such a move in a system that suffers from a lack of vision and leadership in the planning for, selection, retention and deployment of its professionally trained social workers.

"Professionalizing the Public Child Welfare System," written by the Chapter's Committee on Family and Children's Services headed by Dr. Danielle Nisivoccia, is currently being distributed to major players in the City's public policy arena.

The following excerpt encompasses the paper's overview and recommendations.

The City's public sector has a long and rich tradition in providing protective and preventive services, substitute care, and treatment to its most vulnerable children and families. The Child Welfare Administration of the City of New York is the public agency mandated to deliver these services. CWA is currently trying to cope with unprecedented social problems and the challenges of an overburdened child welfare system.

Historically, it was the social work profession that gave rise to the development of public social services, and social work that has been the dominant method of delivering such services. NASW believes that, in order to meet its current challenges and deliver competent, quality care to families and children, CWA must assume leadership in the planning, selection, retention, and deployment of its professionally trained social workers. As the situation now stands, this type of leadership has been sorely lacking. Numerous factors contribute to this troubling situation.

Shortage of Professional Staff

Although CWA has made attempts to add MSWs to its staff, overall the organization lacks a strong cadre of professionally trained social workers. There is little fiscal or professional incentive for individuals to seek employment in the public sector.

Supervisors, who should create the environment for work and learning to take place, often receive only Academy training in unit supervision; they are not social workers professionally trained in the process of helping or in supervision.

High Staff Turnover

Due to poor and, in some cases, dangerous working conditions, high caseloads and budget cuts, the turnover of entry level staff in all service areas continues to remain very high.

Unmanageable Workloads

Workloads in the Protective Field Offices and in Foster Care, especially the Kinship Homes, continue at untenable levels. The accountability in terms of paper work requirements is such that all child welfare workers are spending as much as half of their work time filling out forms.

Lack of Utilization of Professionally Trained Social Workers

The total number of professionally trained social workers in CWA is relatively small. There is apparently no tracking mechanism in place, so the exact numbers are not known. It seems that many of the MSW trained staff are in administrative or managerial positions; there is no career path for practitioners who would prefer to continue to work directly with families and children.

Lack of Vision and Commitment of Public Leaders

Current public leaders espouse concern for vulnerable families and children in New York City: Yet advocating for a budget and funding that would insure higher professional standards, increased competent, quality service and accountability through the utilization of professionally trained social workers in the public sector has not been forthcoming.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In order to deliver competent, quality service to New York City's vulnerable families and children, CWA should:

1. Establish formal agency policies for the utilization of MSW trained staff.

2. Place only MSW trained staff in senior supervisory positions.

3. Establish a formal tracking system to identify where MSW's and BSW's are located in CWA, including longevity and functions within assigned posts.

4. Establish direct practitioner career advancement tracks which visibly parallel the status, salary and benefits of administrators and managers.

5. Institutionalize and provide professional development opportunities for staff, i.e. paid tuition programs, tuition assistance, and paid participation at conferences. Institutionalize programs that are currently provided but could be subject to change, such as flex time, release time, agency based internships and field instruction, and designate work time to write up demonstration projects, research, and new or on-going program outcomes.

6. Pay salary differentials to staff who have successfully completed an MSW program.

7. Allocate funds to hire protective service staff in sufficient numbers so that the agency can meet the acceptable Child Welfare League of America standards of one pending per week with a caseload of 12 per worker. Foster care and adoption workers' recommended caseloads should not exceed 20 children per worker, the equivalent of caseload size in the voluntary sector. The span of control of senior supervisors and Child Protective Managers should represent that which is reasonable for quality, educationally oriented supervision and management.

8. Increase salaries to be on a par with teachers and nurses and, in some cases, with police officers. Recognize that professional social workers often must be on call to respond to emergencies at odd hours and provide appropriate financial compensation.

9. Establish a state of the art computer system to reduce the paper work so as to eliminate duplication, and free up workers to spend more time in direct practice with families and children.

10. Initiate pilot programs to make differential use of social service staff with different levels of education and experience.

11. Require ongoing training to update skills and knowledge.

12. Adopt a proactive, rather than reactive stance on child welfare staffing issues.

The Committee on Family and Children's Services represents the Chapter on practice and policy issues that promote the well-being of families and children in the City. The Committee examines existing programs, identifies service needs and advocates for improvements in the continuum of preventive, protective, foster care and adoption/post adoption services. The Committee also takes a leadership role in advancing and maintaining professional standards of social work practice in family and children's services. Writing and refining the position paper has been a major focus of the Committee's work for the past year. The group is currently looking at issues in professionalizing the voluntary sector.