COVID caused great stress on more families for longer periods resulting in more severely damaged families and children. Child Protection systems including healthcare, foster homes and the CASA guardian ad litem programs are feeling it now. It’s impacting the number of cases, staffing, and the safety of children in the system.
More child protection cases with greater levels of abuse and trauma make the work harder, more dangerous, and the outcomes less satisfying. Volunteer and employee burnout and worker turnover are making life more unsafe for at risk children.
Driving the turnover and trouble replacing volunteers and staff are increased violence on the job, worse results from struggling CPS systems, and the reality of secondary trauma impacting workers. Violence against workers and burnout are a growing problem for frontline workers. Safety concerns for workers, dealing with more severely damaged children from the COVID years, and growing chaos in the system bodes ill for abused and neglected children throughout our communities.
Turnover in social service agencies puts a greater stress on CASA volunteers, leading to more CASA volunteer burnout and volunteers leaving the program.
The shortage of social workers goes beyond frontline workers but includes attorney’s, GAL’s, public defenders, foster families and residential facility workers.
Another disturbing trend in CASA / GAL staff turnover, is within the Executive Director Role. Post COVID saw many high-end managers retire or move into other work. This has put a big strain on the network and child protection as a whole.
When foster families become harder to find, CPS is leaving more children stranded in hospitals and offices or worse yet, sent back into horribly abusive homes where more severe traumas leave marks that last lifetimes.
When social worker caseloads go up because of growing numbers of abuse cases filed or budget cuts (meaning more families and children per social worker caseload) at risk children have even a greater need for community volunteer Guardian ad Litems to help keep them safe.
WHEN YOU Share KARA’s reporting with FRIENDS, INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK and most of all, your State Representative (find them here) change will come a little bit faster. When enough of us become informed and speak up for abused and neglected children, you will improve their lives and our communities!
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