Prevention, more DCS case managers key to child safety: The Courier-Times

Protecting and helping children is the number one priority of the Indiana Department of Child Services and the Henry County office is doing everything it can to achieve that goal.

Currently up for debate is whether Indiana has enough case managers in the agency to adequately protect children from abuse and neglect. Case managers investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect, among other duties.

A former DCS case manager filed a lawsuit in July, 2015 with support from the Indiana American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The case manager claimed that she and other case managers across the state were working far more than the maximum 17 cases allowed under state law. She herself was handling 43 at the time.

Jane Henegar, executive director of the Indiana ACLU, said the caseload requirements are there for a reason.

“It’s not enough to simply pass laws that say we’ll do the right thing,” Henegar said in a statement when the lawsuit was filed. “The purpose of caseload limits is the safety and welfare of vulnerable children. We expect government to meet the letter and the spirit of the law, providing children with the protections they deserve.”

The presiding judge dismissed the lawsuit in February and said that the case manager should pursue her complaint through the state Employee Appeals Commission, an administrative board, instead of the courts.

About a month after the lawsuit was filed, Gov. Mike Pence authorized the hiring of 113 new family case managers – far fewer than the 216 managers the agency said it needed in its annual report to lawmakers in 2014. To get closer to that number, Deputy Director of Communications James Wide said they also hired 100 new case managers this month.

However, the 216 new hires might not be sufficient, the agency then said.

“It may be necessary to hire more than the above number of FCMs (family case managers) to achieve the required statutory standards,” DCS said in its annual report.

Substantiated child neglect and physical abuse cases rose from 2014 to 2015 in Henry County, but sexual abuse cases dropped, according to data collected by the DCS.

The data showed a 50 percent decrease of substantiated child sexual abuse cases in Henry County. There were 12 in 2014 and six in 2015.

The most significant increase from 2014 to 2015 was an 84 percent increase in substantiated child neglect cases, with the county’s total going from 92 in 2014 to 169 in 2015.

Neglect is officially defined as an act in which a child’s physical or mental condition is seriously impaired or seriously endangered as a result of the inability, refusal or neglect of the child’s parent, guardian or custodian to supply the child with necessary food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education or supervision, according to Indiana statute 31-34-1-1.

Henry County saw a particular spike in neglect cases from four in June, 2015 to 40 in July, 2015. Wide said this increase could be due to a number of factors, such as kids being out of school without proper childcare.

Substantiated cases of child physical abuse in Henry County totaled 20 cases in 2015, a 54 percent increase from the previous year.

Director of the Henry County DCS Angie Jordan said that it is important for people to call the Indiana Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline at 1-800-800-5556 if they suspect a child’s welfare is at stake.

“We encourage, and continue to encourage, people to do that if they have any concerns or suspicions of abuse,” she said.

Wide said it’s hard to tell if the 113 new case managers hired in August, 2015 and the 100 hired this month will be enough because caseloads fluctuate on a daily basis. The state agency hires new staffers from the regions of the state that have the highest average caseloads per case manager.

There have been several new case managers hired in Henry County since August and Jordan said they are still looking to hire more.

Applicants for a case manager position are trained for 12 weeks before they go into the field and are paired up with mentors in order to get that experience. After the training period, they graduate from the program and are allowed to go back to their county and start taking cases.

Michelle Kalogeros, the communications coordinator for the DCS, said that anyone who has a heart for helping children and families is a good candidate for being a DCS case manager.

But increasing the number of case managers is only part of the solution. Prevention efforts are also crucial to the success of the DCS.

“The only way to truly reduce the number of kids coming into the system is to be on that front end,” Wide said. “We are a responsive agency, so we get engaged once we learn of the abuse or neglect, whether that be sexual or physical.”

The Henry County DCS participates in the Pinwheels for Prevention campaign every April for National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Pinwheels are meant to symbolize the childhood experience that all children deserve.

“Bringing awareness, I hope, could potentially prevent some form of abuse,” Jordan said.

Jordan said that an important part of the awareness month is talking about safe sleep practices with infants and young children. The DCS advises against co-sleeping and suggests that babies should be in their own cribs on a flat sheet with no stuffed animals or blankets.

This year, the local DCS office will host a free to the public roller skating event, Wheels for Awareness, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. April 28 at Gibson Arena, 406 N. Memorial Drive, New Castle. For more information about the event or Pinwheels for Prevention, contact Jordan at 765-529-3450 ext. 12221, or Carl Scheib, director of the Children’s Bureau Region 12, at 765-827-2045.

*This story was a combination of classwork and my internship. I started the story for a class, but talked with both my professor and editor and they agreed that it should be published in the paper. The first thing I did was look through the data on child abuse in Indiana, specifically Henry County. Then I talked with the director of the Henry County DCS and communications directors for the state DCS in Indianapolis.