South Carolina child-welfare agency says more workers needed
COLUMBIA – South Carolina’s child-welfare agency recently said it needs an added $18 million to improve the state’s child-safety net.
Most of that money would pay for more than 250 new workers in the Department of Social Services’ child-welfare division, including 163 caseworkers to lower caseloads.
Caseloads and turnover reached staggeringly high rates in 2013, prompting outcry from child advocates and a leadership change at Social Services. Those numbers have fallen, but the agency has more work to do, leaders and lawmakers said Thursday.
If hired, the new caseworkers should reduce caseloads to no more than 24 per caseworker handling family preservation and child-abuse assessment cases, and no more than 20 per foster-care caseworker, agency director Susan Alford told a Senate panel Thursday. Those are the limits the agency has set for itself, she added.
Read more: http://www.independentmail.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/03/sc-child-welfare-agency-says-more-workers-needed/97443234/