The Division of Children and Family Services first will focus on hiring employees to help troubled families keep their children as the division's budget increases and officials enact a plan to stabilize an expanding pool of foster children, an official said Tuesday.
Division Director Mischa Martin made the announcement at a legislative Joint Performance Review committee meeting. She said the division planned to hire 102 more people this fiscal year, which will increase its staff by about 10 percent.
"Did our workers have the capacity to deal with caseloads and really get in there and work with the family? The answer was no," she told lawmakers. "If they couldn't get in there and work with the families, they didn't feel like the child could stay in the home."
Dennis Zeller, president of Hornby Zeller Associates, backed up the hiring plan during the meeting.
His consulting firm had written a report, made public last month, that questioned decision-making by the division and juvenile court judges. Martin and Gov. Asa Hutchinson took issue with the report in separate interviews in October.
"What was happening there was an increase in foster care because what would happen, when an investigator went out, was one of two things," Zeller said Tuesday. "He or she had to get rid of that case. It was either leave it alone, forget it, or remove. There was nothing else because there was no time to follow up."
The Division of Children and Family Services previously had announced it would hire 228 more employees over the next three years to deal with a record number of foster children.
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Martin -- along with Department of Human Services Director Cindy Gillespie and other officials -- announced that plan in a news conference earlier this month.
They said a record number of children in the state's foster care system has been caused more by a declining number of children exiting state care rather than an increasing number of children entering it.
The number of children in the state foster care system -- currently 5,200 -- topped 5,000 for the first time this year, after hovering between about 3,600 and 4,100 from 2007 through 2014.
Martin said Tuesday that immediate hires include 60 family service workers, many of whom will focus on in-home or differential response cases where troubled families are given training and oversight instead of having their children removed by the state.
Twenty program assistants will help caseworkers reduce the amount of time they spend doing clerical work, such as copying, and transporting children from place to place.
Another 10 hires will work under regional directors to track and sign off on child removals, while new assistant directors will oversee investigations, reunification and other matters at a system level.
The Department of Human Services -- the agency over the Children and Family Services Division -- will hire an ombudsman to investigate complaints made against the division by the public.
"It's very important that we take those seriously," Martin said. "We need somebody that knows the system, but maybe hasn't worked with us, so that they do come at it with fresh eyes."
Martin told lawmakers that judges did not trust plans by caseworkers to keep children in their homes by addressing parental behavior because those plans could not be enforced.
"Frankly, we lost some trust of the judges because we implemented protection plans that violated our law and didn't keep kids safe," she said.
She told reporters after the meeting that better training is needed so caseworkers write enforceable, specific plans. She said there also needs to be enough caseworkers to check in with parents operating under the plans.
As Martin answered questions during the meeting, some lawmakers said representatives of the Administrative Office of the Courts should go before the committee.
Zeller told the committee that he knew of one state judge who removed children from a home because of marijuana use by parents.
"What we're supposed to be about is promoting the welfare of kids," he said. "Sometimes we forget that and think it's about punishing parents."
A child-welfare case begins when a report of possible abuse or neglect is made to the Child Abuse Hotline. Cases are investigated by the Children and Family Services Division or, in more serious cases, the Crimes Against Children Division at the Arkansas State Police.
A child can be removed for up to 72 hours without court approval. A child can be removed and placed in foster care, left in the home with an open protective-services case or voluntary services put in place, or left with no case open or services put in place.
If a child is removed from the home, a judge must decide whether the state can continue to have custody and where the child should live.
Keesa Smith, deputy director of the Department of Human Services, told reporters that judges were being responsive to the department's requests.
"I know there's some frustration among legislators by the responses of the judges, but we have had a lot of communication with both [the Administrative Office of the Courts] and individual judges," she said.
"They have been more than responsive since Mischa has taken this role and willing to help us and express to us about what their concerns are about the workers, about what's happening in their respective counties."
Metro on 11/30/2016