If you ran an institution that found it hard to keep up with the demands being met in it you would most likely have only one or two choices to meet those demands. Find ways to do the work by simply making people do more with less, or, find more people to provide the service you have been mandated to provide.
Too often, when we just keep increasing the caseload of the worker bees in Child Protection we overwhelm the worker and the resulting terrible outcomes for abused and neglected children makes life even more miserable for them.
Nothing easy about managing a workforce chartered to keep the most vulnerable young lives in our care safe in times of budget cuts, harsh politics, and a public that is itself overwhelmed with other bad news.
For the record, In the case of child protection today, the Child Welfare League of America recommends 12 cases per worker. Currently Minnesota’s 4th district Guardian ad Litem office is already at 20-30 cases per worker and the results are not great. With State and Federal dollars disappearing, more cuts are imminent.
What do you do to hire more workers in a tight job market? Increase wages to where they might attract more recruits. This may work, but there are no guarantees and there will be 300 children without mandated Guardians ad Litem instead of today’s 240.
But you have an ACE in the hole. Minnesota volunteers exist and you can reach out to them. Yes, the process is just as troublesome as interviewing, hiring and training staff and you must do more of it because it takes more volunteers to do the work because they take fewer cases.
In business the cost of extreme turnover would be unsustainable. Think about it: Over 400 volunteers gone because of misguided management policies. 400 workers averaging 20 hours a month with a wage value of $25/hour ($2.5 million dollars).
Add to this 7.5 extra months in foster care that children without GAL’s experience12 ($4,875,000.00) =$7,375,000.00 in government funding that was misspent (by KARA calculations).
Someone in the State House might see these numbers and figure it out that had you not fired 400 volunteers over the last four years, you would not be in this pickle.
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.
Small efforts = real results.
When enough of us become informed and
speak up for abused and neglected children,
we will improve their lives and our communities!
From the Star Tribune article, “Children really don’t have a voice in courtroom except through the adults, so the guardian program is very important,” said Kathleen Blatz, a former Minnesota Supreme Court chief justice who serves on the state’s Guardian ad Litem Board. “To have volunteers who are so connected to the community … and, with training, are very qualified to give in this meaningful way for children — and I just think, why would we say no to that?”
KARA / kidsatriskaction / invisiblechildren.org
This article contributed by Mike Tikkanen former CASA Guardian ad Litem
#childabuse,#childhoodtrauma,#cps,#childprotectionservices,#economics,#kidsatriskaction,#kara,#juvenilejustice,#statistics,#criminaljusticesystem,#publicpolicy, #casaguardian, #kathleenBlatz,#startribune, #gerardbodell, #annahlstrom,
Original text with links to comments & rebuttals of management here
