Minimum Standards Are Not Enough in Child Protection

It's Hawaii's turn in the spotlight as various attorneys, politicians, and journalists investigate the problems with the state's child protective services. The current focus is on the inability of caseworkers to meet face-to-face with each foster child once a month, as rules require. Many people have latched onto that requirement as a talisman, believing that monthly meetings somehow would prevent most abuse within the foster care system.

Unfortunately, that belief is a pipe dream. First, it’s physically impossible for many caseworkers to have monthly meetings. Caseworkers can be juggling as many as 110 cases, with the average caseload being 24 to 31 children. That average case load would require meeting with, on average, one child each day, leaving no time for paperwork, court appearances, school conferences, scheduling medical or mental health care, or dealing with emergencies. The laws of physics don’t leave room for monthly visits with those caseloads.

Second, even if a state has the budget for the recommended 12-15 children per caseworker, monthly visits are not enough to establish the sort of trusted relationship that children require to disclose abuse.  Most of the research tells us that children disclose first to a peer, and only very rarely to a professional. Furthermore, children usually see caseworkers as authority figures — part of the reason that children are in the foster placement to begin with — and not people who can be trusted with confidences.

Abuse in foster care is a serious problem, and there are no simple solutions. One avenue we should explore is working toward more community involvement with caring adults. For example, foster children who are involved in extracurricular groups such as sports or Scouting, will come in frequent contact with experienced and caring adults. They are much more likely to confide in those mentors than in a caseworker. Funding extracurricular activities, then, should be a high priority for foster care programs. Where the state can’t find the money in its budget, community groups can step up.

Child protection is too important a task to be left to minimal standards and overworked state employees. We need to find ways to harness other resources to fully serve the vulnerable children in the foster system.