The Shame of Governmental Child Protection, with CPS worker "Melody," by Julia Griffin

"It wasn't uncommon for caseworkers to falsify their reports. I couldn't believe that they were allowed to do it, but I was told by my supervisor to hush. And I was threatened."

"Melody" (name changed at interviewee's request) worked for the Department of Family and Children Services (DFACS) for ten years. She started at the front desk while attending college at nights to obtain her degree, then worked in eligibility and child protective services. She transferred to another governmental agency three years ago.

Julia: I want to begin by reassuring you that I will not use your real name in the interview. I really appreciate your helping by participating in the interview.

Melody: Please don't use the name of the counties I worked in, either. I'm not entirely sure that it's even safe to use the name of the state. They'll come and get me if they find out I told on them.

Julia: What do you mean by "come and get you"?

Melody: There are several different things that they could do to me, such as blackballing me so that I can't progress in my job. They could hypothetically have me fired or demoted, or eliminate my job, or transfer me to some place I don't want to be. There may be other things they could do too — things I don't want to think about.

Julia: Does the Department of Family and Children Services have this much power?

Melody: Child protective service, or CPS, workers are the elite of DFACS. They have protection from the state. Some of the laws have changed in the past few years since I left because of the press coverage of the 500 children who were killed — 500 children in our state were murdered by their families, children who had all been reported to DFACS but whose cases weren't followed through. But for the most part you can't prosecute CPS. They have immunity.

Here's an example: If a CPS worker took a child away from its parents for a short time and put him or her in a foster home, and then the child was abused physically or sexually in the foster home, it would be logical to think that the parent could prosecute. Particularly if there wasn't a good reason for taking the child out of its home in the first place. But in an instance like this, the agency, the supervisor, the caseworker, and the foster parents themselves are all protected.

The state will protect all of its arms and legs. You wouldn't be able to do anything.

There isn't anything to protect the child.

Caseworkers can be prosecuted now for falsifying reports. Before this, you didn't even need to go to the home and check on the child. You could fabricate it, just write down the visit as if you'd been there. Nothing would happen to you for doing that. You had to have a certain caseload, and it was better if it was heavy, because of course if you don't have a caseload then you don't have a job.

Julia: So you would need to keep a certain number of cases to keep your job?

Melody: They never said it like that. But everyone knew it. You tried to keep cases that weren't hard, that would be easy to resolve, and you would make a big fuss of them. A few of those, and your caseload was full without much work. I never did those things, but some of the workers did.

Julia: Can you tell me a little about how the employees are trained?

Melody: They prefer that you start with a college degree. If you have some college, it is possible to work through the system. You would also have to complete their training program.

Many of the workers come in just out of college with a degree in psychology or sociology. They think they are really going to change things, but they burn out usually within that first year. Many quit because of the stress factor.

Because it's hard for DFACS to get people to stay, they give child protection workers a 20-percent raise at the end of the first year. Child protection services workers also get larger raises than other government workers, although on the government scale the other workers have the same rating.

There are a few good workers who stay, but for the most part the conscientious ones leave.

Julia: So obviously there is a lot of stress. Can you tell me about it?

Melody: Sure. First of all, you have to see terrible things — they don't train the workers to know how stressful it is or what it's like to live with all the things you see.

You see neglect, children living in dirty houses without enough food. You see women who have been beaten by their husbands — sexual abuse in some of the homes, physical abuse everywhere. You see people whose children are hungry but who don't care enough about feeding them even to finish filling out the paperwork.

It's hard. You want to help, but how much can you do?

And sometimes, you try your best and you don't know what good it does in the long run. There was a girl who had been sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend. The little girl was placed in a foster home. The mother went to prison, but she wanted the daughter back when she was released. We fought for her to stay in the foster home, and the little girl was allowed to stay with her foster parents, who really cared about her. But recently, I learned that this girl, now 16, is pregnant and has already been in a juvenile facility. What will her child be like? I hoped she would have a better life than that.

And you can't care too much, or you can't go on with your job.

Julia: You probably saw all kinds of neglect and difficult situations as a DFACS worker. Can you say what it was that you saw most often?

Melody: Mainly, you see physical abuse and neglect, because that's the most difficult to hide. . . lots of bruises, black eyes, broken arms, that sort of thing. Some neighboring counties have had children killed, but we didn't, at least not while I was there. You don't tend to actually see much sexual abuse, probably because it's more difficult to detect or prove — also, because we are in the deep South and it's a more repressive environment than elsewhere. Personally, I had very few reported cases of sexual abuse, but I've read about it in other parts of the country. You are less likely to hear about it here. But I would have to say that the physical abuse was the worst.

Julia: While I was researching this, I read that many children who are terribly abused or even killed are lost in the system. Their parents move from one county to the next and because there are no computer records, the system essentially loses them — until they are reported for abuse in the next county.

Melody: That's not uncommon, because people can move from one county to another and the information doesn't move with them. And it's true that children who are heavily abused can be moved from one county to another without DFACS being able to follow because of the time involved in forwarding the records.

I can give you an example of this: They had a little boy who was being physically abused — or so they thought. The family moved to another county, and a week later the boy's legs had been broken badly by the grandfather. The first county said they didn't have a record of their prior visit with the little boy, and the second county workers said they didn't know they were needed to investigate. The court system determined that no one was in the wrong.

But the little boy's legs were broken. Someone wasn't doing their job.

Julia: I read that part of the problem was the lack of a computerized database. What do you know about this?

Melody: My understanding was that they were working on a database, but there was no database when I was there. As far as I know, most of the files and information were on paper — papers and notes crammed into boxes.

But I thought there was a reason for that: With paper files, it was easy to throw away a case if you didn't want it or if there were problems with it. You could cover up or change anything, say it never existed, and then you were out of the hot water. Caseworkers are afraid of investigation. There are cover-ups, just like the kid I told you about whose legs were broken. On the other hand, there have been good caseworkers fired because someone had to be blamed!

Covering things up is also a way for the supervisor to protect herself. They don't want you to say anything about what happens there. My supervisor was discovered covering up cases that hadn't been properly investigated. The commission found her guilty of wrongdoing. This went to the state, and the state upheld that she was guilty of wrongdoing and said they were going to fire her — I heard this just before I quit — but nothing ever happened. She is still there. So I assume she had information that was detrimental to the people who were on a higher state level.

I think this is part of the reason they used the paper trail instead of the computer, why that wasn't changed over more quickly. You could erase records and change things. And we all knew that it was done.

Julia: I've heard that theoretically anyone could call and report that a child was abused or neglected and DFACS would check them out. Actually, this has happened to a couple of friends of mine who are very good parents. They were investigated. And yet I've heard from schoolteachers and detectives that sometimes children won't be removed from the most awful circumstances. So we're talking about two different situations — one in which children who should be taken out of the home are left there, and one in which children who are being taken care of are investigated.

I've also heard that DFACS bothers the children in the stable home for minor incidents and won't do anything for the children who really need them.

Melody: That's not uncommon. I think that a lot of the time that's absolutely the truth. They'll investigate and investigate good parents in middle class homes and leave the poor children who need help alone.

I'm not sure why this is so, but at meetings we were frequently made aware that the lower classes were open about child abuse, but the middle and upper classes were secretive about it. We were told in a lot of meetings that the middle class hides things and gets away with it, while DFACS persecutes the poor people. There is a consciousness about that. So there may be an emphasis on finding caseloads in other classes besides the lower class, because they want to have a certain number of cases from the middle and upper class.

I've known lots of people who had an ex-wife or an ex-husband or angry relative who called DFACS and reported some event that was not grounds for charges of abuse or neglect. When that happens, DFACS comes to your house, interviews you and your child, and asks for references. If everything doesn't check out, or they're 99 percent sure but have that 1 percent doubt, then there can be an investigation and hearing. I've seen people go through this who did absolutely nothing wrong.

You would want DFACS to check it out if there was abuse — but there's nothing you can do if they want to come to your house. And even if there is nothing wrong and everything checks out, the report will stay until the youngest child in the household is 18 years old.

The schoolteacher has to report whatever she perceives as any type of abuse, because she could be prosecuted if DFACS filed a case concerning the child. Under the law, schoolteachers have to report any possible abuse.

As for the other, yes, there are a lot of cases in which nothing is done, and it should be. You see that. It exists.

Julia: Let's talk about foster families. What benefits do they receive?

Melody: They receive funding for clothing, the child's allowance, Medicaid, and a per diem allowance for the child. They can make money keeping foster children. Most people who keep the children will keep more than one. The state reimburses all of the child's expenses plus the per diem, basically.

Julia: How can they make money keeping foster children? Why doesn't this money go for benefits for people who are trying to keep their children or could keep their children if they received more benefits?

Melody: There are two sides to your question. First of all, yes, some of the foster families take advantage of the system. Per diem is about eleven dollars per day in our state, which isn't much, but all of the children's expenses — clothes, dentist, toys, allowance — are paid for by the state, so if you have more than one child and your lifestyle is modest, you can make money. Foster homes keep the kids so that they look good when the workers come by, but they don't take great care of them.

There are also reports of foster families where sometimes sexual but mainly physical abuse takes place. I didn't have any of these particular cases, but they happened, and I know of them.

Foster homes aren't watched as they should be by the caseworkers. It wasn't uncommon when I worked for DFACS for some of the caseworkers to falsify their reports and say that they had visited a child when they hadn't. I couldn't believe that they were allowed to do it, but I was told by my supervisor to hush. And I was threatened.

There are other foster families who really try to do a good job. They take the children as a commitment and put a lot of time and energy into them. Sometimes they take the really bad kids with severe problems — and then the kids end up stealing their cars or burning their houses down. There are other foster families that can help troubled kids and make a success of it.

As far as the money for primary care homes is concerned, a lot of poor families that could receive benefits never actually complete the paperwork. They come in and they're eligible, but their lives are troubled, or their husbands beat them up, so the paperwork is never finished. It's sad, because their children could receive Medicaid and food stamps and be better taken care of. Some of those children will ultimately go to foster homes, and it doesn't have to happen.

The other side to welfare benefits is this: Some people work hard at low-paying jobs and really need help, and they maybe get ten dollars per month in food stamps. Those people care, and they don't get to see their children as much because they work. On the other side, you have Mama, who stays at home with baby until it's six (because according to the law the baby needs Mama). And you have Papa, who is maybe getting unemployment or knows how to get around the rules. The mother and father who don't work will receive three to four hundred dollars or more in food stamps, plus Medicaid.

Why can't the parents that care and work get help? I don't know. It's the system.

Julia: So what was your experience with foster families as a caseworker? What did you think about it?

Melody: In the county in which I worked, most of the foster families were good people. We didn't have enough of them. Very few people want to get involved in foster care. You are investigated, and you have to go through MAP training. My opinion is that there is a real shortage of foster homes. Now, I worked in a rural county. It might be different in a metropolitan area.

Julia: But in spite of this, there was abuse in foster families?

Melody: Yes, and I still hear about it. I tend to think that this is the fault of caseworkers. I'm not saying that you can always tell when there is abuse, but I certainly think you should be able to tell when there is physical abuse. Children are dying and ending up in the hospital with broken bones because caseworkers are not doing their jobs.

Julia: What can be done to improve the system?

Melody: I think if more people took the chance of speaking out, just as I am now, that it might make a difference. It made a small difference when people started to find out about all the children who had been killed in the system.

Another thing is to intensify the efforts of following up on the hard cases, like children of drug dealers. Workers don't want to do that because it means going into a nasty house with people who are dangerous.

Use good judgment about stable homes, and don't waste time investigating cases just because they are easy and fill the caseload.

I want to say that there are some good CPS workers who do a great job. There are also a lot of workers that aren't good, that don't care about the kids. You have to go to work and live with that every day. You're not supposed to say ever that you disagree with the decisions that have been made. You're supposed to be a team player and support those lousy workers who make decisions that hurt kids.

So the workers who really care don't have support from their supervisors, and they can't always follow through as they should on their cases.

Hardest of all, you've got to live with yourself for every time you didn't say something and wish you had later. I was always in trouble for opening my mouth. In the end, I just couldn't stay there any longer.

One thing that would make a difference would be to change the rules about the supervisors. Usually, supervisors are people who have worked there forever, and they're not about to do anything to mess up their retirement. So these supervisors don't support the workers who try to make decisions to protect the children.

I think that supervisors are the main problem. You can be blackballed — by that I mean fired with no references — if you say anything.

Here's an example. One person was trying to decide whether or not to take a child under the 24-hour law. His supervisor had insisted he contact her before making that decision, but he couldn't reach his supervisor by phone to discuss it. Everything went badly. The child was abused, and there were a lot of problems.

When asked at a meeting why he allowed the incident to take place, he said, "It was my supervisor." He was fired immediately after the meeting and told not to come back. They mailed his personal things to him.

They don't back you up. If there is any problem, you'll be in trouble for it. The worker is always wrong if there is a conflict. So a lot of times, instead of using your best judgment, you end up trying to figure out what your supervisor will think is the best decision. Because you'll be the scapegoat if you're wrong.

If you are working and you have to work, you don't want to lose your job or have it so that you can't get a job. The people who stay at DFACS are the ones who are willing to live with that. The people like me, who care about the children — those are the ones who leave.