ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 28, 1997 TAG: 9702280016
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
MONTGOMERY COUNTY will be one of five state social service departments that will be trying out the new Multiple Response System.
When the Virginia Court of Appeals struck down the "reason-to-suspect" category of child abuse case in 1995, it left no way for state Child Protective Services workers to monitor cases where they suspected abuse or neglect but lacked strong evidence.
That, coupled with complaints that the system was intrusive and destructive to families, prompted the Virginia Department of Social Services to find a less adversarial way to protect children. It looked for a way that Child Protective Services units could focus on serious cases of abuse and neglect but still reach people who simply needed to learn how to be good parents or caretakers.
Last year, the department developed the "Multiple Response System," a three-track system that allows Child Protective Services to take action not only on reports of severe abuse and neglect but also those where parents need basic parenting skills.
Saturday, a three-year test of the new system will begin in five local social services departments, including Montgomery County's.
Child Protective Services units in those five departments - the others are Albemarle County, Portsmouth, York County-Poquoson and Loudon County - will investigate only the most serious types of reports. Those would be reports of abuse or neglect that result in serious injury such as disfigurement, life-threatening internal injuries or severe burns or lacerations.
Reports that do not meet CPS criteria, such as a 15-year-old girl who has been beaten by her boyfriend, will be referred to the appropriate agency - in that case, the police. CPS only handles cases where children under 18 have been abused or neglected by a parent or caretaker.
Valid reports that warrant CPS intervention but don't require an investigation will be referred for a "family assessment" - a method of helping families address problems that may represent poor parenting skills or issues that may affect the safety of a child but don't need to be labeled abusive.
"It gives us two additional types of response in addition to the traditional investigation," said Dan Farris, director of the Montgomery County Department of Social Services in Blacksburg.
"Those incidents that involve serious injury or sexual abuse will continue to be investigated. But for those less serious [cases], we would focus on assessment in which we would work with the family in terms of it being a family problem, maybe a lack of parenting skills, and provide social work intervention as opposed to police action."
But Barbara Bryan, a Roanoke woman who is communication director for the Toledo-based National Child Abuse Defense & Resource Center, said the Multiple Response System will work no better than the current system in needlessly branding people as abusers. Bryan has lobbied over the past 10 years for the total dismantling of Child Protective Services.
With the Multiple Response System, "there is no category for [CPS workers] who think 'Oops, we don't need it at all,''' Bryan said. "There's never a chance for people to back off. They can call it whatever they want, but there is no more serious claim against a parent or caretaker than that of child abuse or neglect."
But from the social services perspective, the Multiple Response System is a vastly different approach, Farris said.
"We'll look at trying to build family strength as opposed to it being strictly an investigation, a 'What did you do wrong approach?''' he said. "Obviously, for some folks any intervention at all is interference. But it does enable us a lot more flexibility in how we approach the individual family."
In the current Child Protective Services system, all valid reports of child abuse and neglect are investigated and deemed "founded" or "unfounded."
Families in founded cases are provided with counseling services. If severe enough, the cases are referred to law enforcement. Founded cases are placed in the central registry, a kind of bank of accused child abusers, used in part by day care centers and schools to screen people who work with children.
Unfounded cases receive no follow-up services. They are not placed in the central registry, but paperwork can be kept on them for up to one year.
Judy Brown, supervisor of the Roanoke Department of Social Services' CPS unit, said it's too early to tell how much of an improvement the Multiple Response System will be over the current system.
But "the concept is a much better way," she said. "People may see it more as a helping hand than a pointing finger."
In the 1995-96 fiscal year, Brown's office had 961 valid reports of child abuse and neglect. About 25 percent were deemed founded, meaning clear and convincing evidence existed to support the reports.
Montgomery County had 237 valid reports of child abuse and neglect in the 1995-96 fiscal year, Farris said. About 16 percent of those were founded, he said.
Virginia is one of few states that plan to use or are using the tiered approach. Only five states - Missouri, South Dakota, Florida, Iowa and West Virginia - have a system that uses different levels of intervention.
"The state is going to be very interested in how this goes," Farris said. "We will really be in a fishbowl."
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