Colorado’s child-protection system is overburdened and may need 574 more caseworkers — a 49 percent increase — to handle the work, according to a state study released Monday.
The study also recommended the hiring of 122 new supervisors. In total, there are an estimated 1,800 county child-protection workers, supervisors and support staff in Colorado.
The study found that caseworkers should be spending 18 percent more time on screening abuse allegations and 99 percent more time ensuring that children removed from abusive homes receive proper care. The time those workers should be spending on adoptions should increase by 156 percent, the study found.
“Now we have the hard data behind what I’ve been saying the whole time: We have been asking too few people to do too big a job by themselves,” said Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, a former child-protection caseworker.
He said he would meet with other legislators to see if they would join him in drafting a letter to seek support for additional funding.
Reggie Bicha, executive director of the Colorado Department of Human Services, said no
“definitive conclusions” could be drawn from the study. But he said it did establish that the system would improve with more front-line workers.
“Of course I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone out there who says, ‘I’m overstaffed,’ ” he said.
Many counties wouldn’t have office space available for the workers the study projected may need to be hired, Bicha said.
A focus group of 150 child-protection workers, conducted as part of the study, found that two-thirds felt their assigned work is unmanageable.
“According to focus-group participants, when the volume of assigned work is too heavy, it can mean that they have to cut corners in terms of accuracy and quality to keep up with their work assignments,” the study’s authors said.
For instance, child-protection workers recorded having face-to-face contact each month with only 25 percent of those children who have been removed from abusive homes despite a requirement that all children receive such contact monthly, the study found.
State Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton, said the recommended 49 percent staffing increase will create divisions at the legislature.
“That is huge, and that is going to take a lot of dollars with competing interests at the Capitol,” she said. “We’ll see how pro-children our priorities are at the Capitol this year.”
Newell pushed for the creation of the Colorado Child Protection Ombudsman, which investigates complaints of the child-welfare system.
In 2012, The Denver Post published an investigative series, “Failed to Death,” that examined shortcomings in Colorado’s child-welfare system. The series found that 72 of the 175 children who died of abuse and neglect in Colorado in the prior six years had families or caregivers known to child-protection workers.
Legislators passed a handful of child-welfare reforms following the investigation, including the creation of a statewide child- abuse hotline and a requirement that state agencies review every preventable child death.
Lawmakers requested the workload study last year from the Colorado Office of the State Auditor.
It was released Monday during a Legislative Audit Committee hearing. The state had never before conducted a workload study of the child-welfare system. An audit, scheduled to be released later this year, will review casework by child-protection staff and how abuse allegations are handled.
During the hearing, Rep. Dianne Primavera, D-Broomfield, said she wondered if it would be more efficient if the state administered the child-protection program instead of counties. Colorado is one of nine states that have state-run, county-administered child-welfare systems. Bicha said studies suggest there would be no savings.
“More work must be done to determine the sufficient capacity of caseworkers and supervisors in every county in Colorado,” said Julie Krow, director of Colorado’s Office of Children, Youth and Families.
The study tracked for four weeks how much time child-welfare workers spent on 11 major services broken down into 69 key tasks. It also reviewed caseloads and projected how much time actually should be spent on the services provided.
The study found the number of child-protection caseworkers per child varied greatly throughout the state, with a high of 4.8 workers per 1,000 children in Lincoln County to Denver’s one worker per 1,000 children. It found that 11 counties had fewer than one child-protection worker per 1,000 children. Estimates weren’t provided for 15 counties.
The study found that in some counties, those tasked with protecting children from abuse must split their time on other duties, such as assisting the elderly.
“It’s sort of an all-hands-on-deck strategy to get services delivered,” said Brian Cronin, a senior manager for ICF International Inc.
The Fairfax, Va.-based company conducted the study with assistance from the Denver office of Walter R. McDonald & Associates.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747, cosher@denverpost.com or twitter.com/chrisosher
