[T]he number of Vermont children in the custody of the Department for Children and Families has jumped by a third since the beginning of 2014, according to a report published this week.
DCF says that there are now 1,326 children in custody, with the sharpest increase of intake occurring among children under age 6.
The number of cases of child abuse and neglect that the DCF investigates and manages has been on the rise over the past several years, according to the department’s 2014 child protection report.
Vermont’s child protection system came under statewide scrutiny last year after two toddlers who had open cases with DCF were allegedly abused and killed by relatives.
Last year, in the wake of the toddler deaths, the department added 18 new social workers.
According to DCF officials, social workers in the family services division now have higher caseloads than they did before the new positions were added last year.
DCF Commissioner Ken Schatz said Wednesday the department will look at what additional resources may be needed.
“The reality is, if this trend of increasing numbers of children coming into state custody continues we are going to be increasingly challenged,” Schatz said.
To manage the compounding caseloads, DCF has hired temporary staff to support social workers, Schatz said. The aides can help reduce the stress on staff by assisting with tasks that might not require a social worker — providing transportation for children, for example.
According to the report, substance abuse was the leading factor involved in cases of child abuse and neglect, cited in 31 percent of reports. DCF said that the statewide issue of opiate addiction has factored in to the uptick in incidents of child abuse. Opiates factored into roughly 80 percent of cases involving children age 3 and under, a survey conducted by the department last year found.
The Shumlin administration’s effort to improve treatment options for opiate addiction around the state should help to cut down on child abuse cases in the long run, Schatz said.
The department is in the process of implementing the recently passed Act 60, or S.9, a law that makes wide-ranging reforms to the state’s child protection system. Lawmakers feared that children were being reunified with their families before parents were fit to care for them, and changed the law to focus instead on serving “the best interest of the child” — which may not include reunification.
Schatz said that the 2014 deaths of Dezirae Sheldon, 2, of Poultney, and Peighton Geraw, 15 months, of Winooski, have had an impact on how DCF carries out work related to child abuse and neglect.
“I do think we’re being more careful,” Schatz said. “I think that we recognized after those fatalities that we do really want to put the safety of the child at the very, very top of the list of our concerns.”
The child abuse hotline saw an increase of more than 10 percent in calls in 2014. There a record 19,288 calls. Schatz said the increase shows heightened public awareness about child abuse.
Linda Johnson of Prevent Child Abuse Vermont said the state needs to hire more social workers and investigators to meet the increasing demands for child protection.
“We’re asking DCF to be superheroes and do the impossible,” Johnson said.
Johnson said more of the state’s resources need to be funneled to outreach programs that help cut down on child abuse before it happens.
According to the report:
• About three-quarters of calls to the hotline were from mandatory reporters, 19 percent were from non-mandatory reporters, and the remainder were anonymous;
• DCF intervened in about 30 percent, or 5,846, of the child safety cases that were reported;
• DCF provided long-term services for 829 of those cases.
