On Thursday Pennsylvania’s Auditor General presented a special report called the “State of the Child.”
“The system is broken. And Pennsylvania’s at-risk children are not safe,” that’s according to Auditor General Eugene DePasquale.
The report looked at the state’s Children and Youth Services over the past year- assessing the strengths and challenges of Pennsylvania’s child-welfare system.
In 2016 alone- $1.8 billion were spent to protect children.
In that time 46 children died from abuse and neglect and there were 79 near deaths.
DePasquale is calling the child welfare system a broken system and major issues seem to stem from Centre County.
During his speech, DePasquale noted significant issues following the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
He said in 2015 once more laws were put into place to report potentially at risk children, 66 of the state’s 67 counties saw an increase in reports.
And the work load for an individual caseworker went from about 20 to up to 75.
He also noted that turnover in the department is creating a domino effect and it’s being caused by low salaries and not enough training.
Those are two things he believes are crucial for caseworkers who are going into sometimes extremely dangerous situations that police officers often deal with such as domestic calls and drugs.
“You have one person with a Bachelor’s degree, going into that same environment, with no law enforcement training and no back up,” DePasquale said.
DePasquale noted the amount of pressure and responsibility caseworkers take on.
But CYS is struggling to find qualified workers, and those they do find are not receiving solid training.
He said it’s a small workforce struggling to meet extremely high demand.
And the career becomes more unattractive with low salaries that don’t compete with the national average of just over $50,000.
“In our 13 focus counties, the starting salary for an entry level caseworker position was $30,018 dollars for the same year. $20,000 dollars lower than the national average for someone with the same educational background. That’s insane,” DePasquale said.
Ultimately he said better pay isn’t the complete answer; there needs to be updates in training and a way to better use state and federal resources to lighten the workload for caseworkers.
“The system is broken. And Pennsylvania’s at-risk children are not safe,” that’s according to Auditor General Eugene DePasquale.
The report looked at the state’s Children and Youth Services over the past year- assessing the strengths and challenges of Pennsylvania’s child-welfare system.
In 2016 alone- $1.8 billion were spent to protect children.
In that time 46 children died from abuse and neglect and there were 79 near deaths.
DePasquale is calling the child welfare system a broken system and major issues seem to stem from Centre County.
During his speech, DePasquale noted significant issues following the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
He said in 2015 once more laws were put into place to report potentially at risk children, 66 of the state’s 67 counties saw an increase in reports.
And the work load for an individual caseworker went from about 20 to up to 75.
He also noted that turnover in the department is creating a domino effect and it’s being caused by low salaries and not enough training.
Those are two things he believes are crucial for caseworkers who are going into sometimes extremely dangerous situations that police officers often deal with such as domestic calls and drugs.
“You have one person with a Bachelor’s degree, going into that same environment, with no law enforcement training and no back up,” DePasquale said.
DePasquale noted the amount of pressure and responsibility caseworkers take on.
But CYS is struggling to find qualified workers, and those they do find are not receiving solid training.
He said it’s a small workforce struggling to meet extremely high demand.
And the career becomes more unattractive with low salaries that don’t compete with the national average of just over $50,000.
“In our 13 focus counties, the starting salary for an entry level caseworker position was $30,018 dollars for the same year. $20,000 dollars lower than the national average for someone with the same educational background. That’s insane,” DePasquale said.
Ultimately he said better pay isn’t the complete answer; there needs to be updates in training and a way to better use state and federal resources to lighten the workload for caseworkers.