THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 15, 1995 TAG: 9501140089
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DANIEL M. STONE
LENGTH: Long : 199 lines
The decisions social workers must make have recently prompted both headlines and controversy. Editorial Page Editor Beth Barber invited Dan Stone, director of the Virginia Beach Social Services Department, to explain how his department approaches those difficult decisions. A second article will appear on this page Jan. 22.
One cannot open the newspaper or turn on the television without being exposed to some story in which a defenseless child is abused, neglected or abandoned. Child abuse has no boundaries of race, religion or socioeconomic group.
In Virginia Beach, the Department of Social Services receives almost 500 calls per week from citizens reporting incidents of child abuse and neglect. Many of these complaints are screened out because they do not meet the state/federal criteria for abuse or can be handled by another pro-gram.
To be a valid complaint for Child Protective Services, guidelines must be met to justify an investigation: (1) The alleged victim must be under the age of 18 at the time of the report. (2) The alleged abuser must be a caretaker or a parent. (3) The complaint must meet the definition of abuse and neglect. (4) The alleged incident must be within the jurisdiction of the City of Virginia Beach.
Each CPS referral is screened to see if it meets the policy definitions of child abuse and neglect. After that, CPS supervisors do a risk assessment to determine a priority in case assignment. Those children assessed at the highest risk of death, serious injury or further immediate abuse are classified as emergencies and receive an immediate response. Other referrals are classified as high, medium or low risk to help guide workers in prioritizing their response time. Ideally, all reports would be responded to on the day of the referral, but increasing caseloads and decreasing resources make this virtually impos-sible.
CPS investigators actively respond to over 60 complaints per week. Responding means that the worker must have a face-to-face interview with the child or children and must interview all alleged abusers or neglectors. All collaterals and parents who are not the alleged abusers must also be interviewed.
Three dispositions can be made. The complaint can be ``founded,'' ``unfounded'' or ``reason to suspect.'' To make a founded disposition, a review of the facts must show clear and convincing evidence that abuse or neglect occurred. This evidence must be doc-umented.
In Virginia Beach, all sexual abuse cases and/or cases of severe physical abuse that may result in felony criminal charges are investigated by a trauma team. One detective and one social worker jointly interview all family members. This procedure reduces the trauma to children who in the past might have been subjected to multiple interviews. The trauma team approach also ensures case coordination and communication and screens the case simultaneously for criminal charges and a CPS disposition.
There is a difference between the approach and methods used by the police and those mandated for social workers. Child protective investigators and foster-care workers by state code and federal law are guided by a therapeutic model. Their interventions are non-punitive and are focused on increasing the strengths and skills of parents and caretakers in raising their children.
When families are also involved with the criminal-justice system, the goals of each organization may sometimes appear to conflict. The justice system may very well be focused on proving criminal behavior at the same time that Social Services focuses on moving the family toward healthier behaviors.
Sometimes prosecution is a productive part of the treatment process; but sometimes, especially with the long delays inherent in the criminal-justice process, CPS is bound by ethics as well as policy to begin the healing process long before a case goes to trial.
The Virginia Beach Department of Social Services responded to approximately 3,000 complaints of abuse and neglect last year. This breaks down to approximately 60 investigations per week.
Being a CPS investigator means being able to balance the mandate to protect children with respect for the rights of parents and the value of family integrity. Each report is approached as a suspicion, not as a foregone conclusion.
Decisions must be made on evidence and professional judgment, not personal beliefs or preferences. Workers must always be prepared to make life-and-death decisions. They have to assess safety factors in the homes of children reported as being abused and neglected. If it is determined that a child is not safe at home, the child is removed immediately. The first attempt is directed toward finding relatives and/or friends to care for the child(ren). If this is not possible, they are often placed in foster care.
A protective service worker may take custody of a child for up to 72 hours if the circumstances present an imminent danger to the child's life or health to the extent that severe injury could occur and a court order cannot be immediately obtained. If a social worker uses this authority, he/she must notify the court as soon as possible and a hearing is scheduled to present the evidence before a judge.
Federal and state regulations make family reunification the first goal of all services. In order to discontinue reunification efforts, the court must be satisfied that all ``reasonable efforts'' have been made to assist the family in regaining custody of its child. The mandate for social workers is to reduce the risk of harm, not to produce perfect families.
Decisions regarding the reunification of children with their families are not made by any one agency alone. Mental Health, Court Services, Substance Abuse, Court Appointed Special Advocates, police, Public Health, physicians, attorneys for the parents and the child and other family members may all potentially be involved with decisions regarding reunification.
All children have a right to have their physical, mental and emotional needs met. All children have a right to live in a safe environment. Ensuring that these rights are met is not the exclusive responsibility of Child Protective Service or foster-care workers.
It is the responsibility of all concerned citizens and we must all work together to accomplish this goal.
If the child goes into foster care, the court becomes actively involved in every aspect of the case, from deciding to remove the child from the home to reviewing the plan of services, both initially and periodically, for as long as the child remains in the custody of the Department of Social Services.
FOSTER CARE: The philosophy of the program is to maintain family unity and keep children in their own homes whenever pos-si-ble.
Foster care is one of the most challenging and complex programs administered by human-services agencies. Criticisms range from accusations that Social Services' departments irresponsibly take children from parents and keep them in the system too long to accusations that they do not act quickly enough and do not keep them in the system long enough.
Over the years, like most programs, the philosophy of foster care has changed. Agencies attempt to place in the foster care system children who are abused, neglected and/or abandoned, and whose parents/guardians cannot or will not provide a safe environment for them.
This philosophy excludes a number of children who have traditionally been placed in the system for problems that could have been resolved through the use of other options. For example, poverty in and of itself is not sufficient justification for placing children in the foster-care system. Instead, workers are encouraged to identify and utilize other resources to help resolve poverty issues.
The Virginia State Department of Social Services defines foster care as ``substitute family living on a 24-hour basis.'' Foster care is intended to be a temporary action rather than a long-term solution.
Foster-care requirements are specifically set forth in federal law that provides funding and a model for state law. The amount of financial participation by the federal government is dependent upon both state and local compliance with these federal regulations.
These federal and state requirements are to ensure that children and families with complex needs are assessed and serviced on an interagency basis.
Pre-placement services are provided, and all reasonable efforts are made to prevent unnecessary removal of children from their families. Before a placement occurs, a judicial determination must be made (1) that reasonable efforts to prevent removal have been explored, (2) that a treatment plan has been developed on each child and that the plan is appropriate; and (3) that agencies have demonstrated ongoing efforts to unify child and family, and must document this on a prescribed basis.
There are some cases, however, in which abuse and neglect are so severe, and potential for reunification is so limited, that other options such as adoption and/or permanent foster care must be immediately pursued.
The State Board of Social Services has set forth guiding principles for services to children in foster care and their families. State law also definitively prescribes a set of goals for foster care in priority. The initial goal of return to parents must be categorically ruled out before a lower-level goal may be considered and pursued.
The goals are ranked as follows: (1) return to parent, (2) placement with relatives, (3) adoption, (4) permanent foster care and (5) continued foster care/independent living.
The state code discusses the foster-care service plan that must be completed on every foster child. This plan is to be designed to lead to the return of the child to his or her parent or other previous custodians in the shortest time possible. It also requires that if a child cannot be returned within a reasonable time, the worker shall describe the reason for this conclusion in detail.
When abuse/neglect occurs in a family, the Virginia Code instructs workers at the Department of Social Services to arrange for rehabilitative services for parents to facilitate their reunification with their children. The prescribed rehabilitative services should include such activities as counseling, psychological and psychiatric evaluation and treatment, parenting classes, drug and alcohol treatment, and intensive in-home services, all of which are designed to assist the family with improving its functioning.
Further, the law mandates that children must be safe, and parents must be given the opportunity to learn and demonstrate appropriate nurturance and management of their children.
Unless parents voluntarily relinquish their parental rights, it is very difficult to permanently separate a child from a parent. The burden of providing to a court of law evidence that the parents have been provided all the necessary and available services to assist them in reuniting with their children rests with the agency. Only after this is documented to the court's satisfaction will a judge consider permanently removing a child from his/her parents.
At any given time, the Virginia Beach Department of Social Services has approximately 180-200 children in foster care. Seventy-five to 80 of these children are usually in residential treatment centers because of the severity of their situations and opportunities. Twenty are in very specialized foster homes known as ``TAFY homes'' (The Alliance for Youth). These homes are designed to have 24-hour supervision and accept children who have severe behavior or mental problems, avoiding the need for more expensive residential treatment.
The majority of foster children are with regular foster parents, who are representatives of the citizens in our community. They are wonderful, generous, giving people who have a desire to make a difference in a child's life.
For many children, foster care provides a safe haven when the home environment has become dangerous and life-threatening. However, we must all be encouraged to remember that foster care is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The larger aim of the program is to protect children and to make a significant difference in their lives, not to parent them for a lifetime. by CNB