A Follow-up Review of the Division of Family and Children’s Services of the Department of Human Services
Executive Summary
The Division of Family and Children’s Services within the Mississippi Department of Human Services offers protective services to children, youth, vulnerable adults, and families; provides foster care and adoption placement services for children in its custody; and conducts education and prevention activities for individuals and families who are at risk of developing behavior patterns associated with abuse and neglect.
In a 1992 review of the Office of Social Services of the Division of Family and Children’s Services, the PEER Committee found that the office had not reached its fullest service potential due to the absence of well-trained professionals at all levels and lack of a quality assurance system capable of identifying and correcting weaknesses in service delivery. Further, PEER determined that the office had not collected the information necessary to determine accurately how many social workers were needed to deliver the desired level of social services to all clients.
The Legislature has taken steps to improve the qualifications of the Division of Family and Children’s Services social worker staff in the years since PEER’s 1992 review; however, despite improvements, deficiencies still exist.
With respect to improvements in workforce quality, in 1994 the Legislature began requiring all social workers hired by the department to be licensed by the state. While this is a marked improvement over having no degree or licensure requirements for social workers as had previously been the case, the 1994 law contained a "grandfathering" provision. This provision allowed social workers in MDHS’s Division of Family and Children’s Services employed at the time of the law’s passage to be licensed without a degree in social work and in some cases without passing the licensure examination. Of the 381 social workers employed with the Division of Family and Children’s Services as of January 1999, 204 had been hired after July 1, 1994, and therefore had obtained their licenses via normal licensing, 70 had been grandfathered by passing the licensure examinations and 107 had been grandfathered on the basis of having five or more years of experience (and were not required to take the licensure examination).
MDHS’s training policies do not insure that the division’s "grandfathered" social workers who have not passed the licensure exam have obtained the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform social work competently.
Given the seriousness of a social worker’s job responsibilities and the fact that more than a quarter of the division’s social worker staff employed as of January 1999 were grandfathered without having demonstrated anything more than five years of service, training is critical to assuring a competent workforce. Although the department has developed an in-house training program since PEER’s 1992 review and all social workers must now meet continuing education requirements established by the Board of Examiners for Social Workers and Marriage and Family Therapists, MDHS does not perform the steps necessary to determine whether the training it provides is relevant to and effective in addressing deficiencies and needs of the social workers in the Division of Family and Children’s Services. For example, the department administers tests to that division’s social workers subsequent to its new employee training program, but because the department does not consistently score tests or review the results of those tests which are scored, it cannot prescribe remediation where needed. Further, 91 of the 381 social workers employed with the Division of Family and Children’s Services as of January 1999 never participated in the training program.
The Division of Family and Children’s Services still does not have an adequate quality assurance system.
With respect to the department’s failure to implement a quality assurance system capable of identifying and correcting problems in service delivery on an ongoing basis, PEER found that:
• while the department has developed a casework-based employee appraisal form as recommended by PEER in 1992, supervisors do not use these forms to document serious deficiencies in case work, although MDHS investigative teams have clearly documented such deficiencies in ad hoc reports. This failure to document deficiencies through the performance appraisal process deprives management of a critical tool for identifying and correcting problems in service delivery (including providing employees with appropriate training); and,
• the department has not improved its system for assessing the adequacy and proper placement of service staff. The department still uses outdated case/workload standards in establishing resource needs.
Although MDHS’s Program Integrity Division conducts periodic reviews in all counties for compliance with policies and procedures, the division only conducts these reviews for a small number of cases (e.g., only eight investigation and eight foster care cases were reviewed in a county with a large caseload).
Findings of the department’s ad hoc reviews and investigations of selected county operations reflect significant performance deficiencies and highlight supervisors’ failure to implement MDHS’s employee performance appraisal system properly.
In response to specific complaints or requests, the Division of Family and Children’s Services conducted three ad hoc investigations which documented serious service delivery problems in Hinds and Lauderdale counties and to a lesser extent in Jackson County. While it is encouraging that MDHS has the capacity to conduct such reviews when it commits the resources, it is essential that the department conduct intensive casework oversight on an ongoing basis (e.g., through properly conducted employee performance appraisals).
Recommendations for Departmental Action
1. The Division of Family and Children’s Services Training Unit Director should ensure that every social worker has successfully completed (as measured by a passing grade on the test) the four-week in-house training program and provide any individual social worker remediation necessary to achieve this objective.
2. The Division of Family and Children’s Services Training Unit Director should conduct a training needs assessment based on information obtained through internal program reviews and individual performance appraisals to identify appropriate continuing education course offerings for social workers.
3. The Director of the Division of Family and Children’s Services should ensure that all area social work supervisors are trained in the proper completion of employee performance appraisals. Proper implementation of the appraisal system requires review of each case by a social worker for compliance with departmental policies and procedures. Division management should annually review social workers’ performance appraisals to determine problem areas (e.g., case management) which should be improved.
4. The Director of the Division of Family and Children’s Services should carry out PEER’s 1992 recommendation to:
• identify objectives and standards for each case type;
• determine the average time needed to meet those objectives and standards;
• determine the maximum number of cases by type that a social worker can carry on average if service objectives are to be accomplished;
• determine current and projected workload by case type; and,
• apply caseload ratios to current and projected workload to arrive at resource needs.