In 2018, the Department for Children and Families reported 1,182 Vermont children were victims of abuse or neglect — the highest number in 14 years.
That data comes from the 2018 Report on Children and Families, presented to lawmakers in the Joint Child Protection Oversight Committee Thursday. The report is required by law to be compiled each year, to check in on how DCF is doing and on whether the department has enough resources to support its work.
“Our child welfare system is still really challenged as a whole,” DCF Commissioner Ken Schatz said in an interview. “We really see as our main mission as being to protect children. But I am encouraged by a lot of the efforts we have going on.”
The report shows the boost in substantiations comes alongside a drop in the number of cases actually being reported. In 2018, DCF’s Child Protection Line received 20,779 reports — 422 fewer than the previous year.
Schatz said it’s not totally clear why the number of substantiated cases is still rising, though he noted that data shows the opioid epidemic has played a significant role in the department’s increased caseload over the past several years.
Of the cases substantiated in 2018, 554 were related to physical abuse or fear of physical harm, 447 were related to sexual abuse or fear of sexual harm, and 35 were related to emotional maltreatment.
Schatz said one thing that accounts for the disparity between the number of reports and the number of substantiated cases (which is 20:1), is that there are often duplicate reports — or multiple people calling about the same child.
But he said even when that isn’t the case, the department doesn’t mind getting a high number of calls. Schatz said it’s important that everyone feels comfortable calling when they’re not sure a child is safe — even if they don’t have all the details, or don’t know if something meets the DCF standard for intervention.
“We do encourage anybody who has reasonable suspicion to call,” Schatz said. “Because above all, we want to make sure that we’re protecting children.”
But to manage all those cases, the department’s workers have been spread thin. The national best practice is 12 cases per worker. Right now, Vermont’s caseworkers have an average of 16.2 — though that includes new employees, who don’t take on full caseloads, leaving their more experienced workers with 22.8 cases on average, nearly double best practices.
“Sometimes investigations take longer to complete than I wish were the case,” Schatz said. “That’s just part of our workload challenge.”
Last year, DCF asked the Legislature for a $2 million budget increase, of which $1.7 million was granted. That is being used to hire 14 new people to help stabilize caseloads, Schatz said.
This year also marked the first time that DCF included juvenile court data in its report. The data came in two main categories – cases of abuse and neglect, and cases of child delinquency. FY2019 saw 897 cases of abuse or neglect in courts, down several hundred from the previous year — thought the overall number of cases in juvenile court, 2,307, was up slightly from years past.
“We realized our reports weren’t telling the whole story of child welfare in Vermont,” Schatz said. “It didn’t talk about how many filings were made in court, and about how many times we’re asking the court to get involved in families lives.”
After presenting the update to lawmakers on the current status of DCF and the children it oversees, several advocates spoke to lawmakers about something they think could help ensure that DCF is doing the best it can to help children — implementing a statewide child advocate.
The advocate would be in a quasi-independent role, monitoring and evaluating agencies that are charged with the protection of children in Vermont.
According to Amy Brady, a policy associate at Voices for Vermont’s Children, Vermont is the only state in New England that does not have someone in that role.
She said because of DCF’s confidentiality restraints and lack of sufficient resources, there has been a lack of transparency around the system that doesn’t instill trust in its work.
“DCF routinely asks families to become vulnerable in order to become better,” Brady said. “We are asking the state to do the same.”
Lawmakers said they’d consider the creation of that position over the coming months.
