Arizona's Child Protective Services can't keep up. The agency can't hire enough new workers to reach appropriate staffing levels. It can't keep workers long enough to build stability. It struggles to keep kids safe. It can't provide adequate foster placements for kids in trouble, forcing them to sleep in offices.
And now CPS, which has long used the privacy rights of children to protect itself from public scrutiny, has revealed that a computer glitch has kept the agency from providing complete public records to more than 30,000 people. The records problems may trace back to 1996 when the computer case management system was programmed.
Late Friday afternoon - that's when CPS likes to discuss unflattering news - spokeswoman Tasya Peterson told us a programming error in the agency's clunky computer system, called CHILDS, resulted in a considerable amount of records not being released to parents, attorneys, law enforcement officers and journalists.
She was unclear how many records haven't been released since 1996, but said the case-note program has 98 various screens that workers have to complete. For some reason, the program only printed 37 screens when it came to producing records. Peterson said the missing information could very easily be redundant - and a review determined this.
But the public still does not know what it didn't receive. Given CPS' track record with botched cases and not always being open with the public, we doubt the agency's assurances that everything is OK comes as any comfort to parents or a concerned public.
The lack of information could have swayed legal claims or child dependency cases. Parents who were accused of abuse may not have received all of the appropriate case information to defend themselves. Perhaps this missing information wouldn't have changed anything, but how does anyone know?
Peterson said the agency can't track records issues prior to 2010 because those requests were logged manually. The 30,000 people who have received incomplete records are from the last two years when requests were handled digitally. The agency discovered the problem in June during a routine review.
"Recently DES (Department of Economic Security) proactively conducted a review of its records and disclosure practices as part of our commitment to provide the greatest possible transparency allowed by state and federal law," Peterson wrote in an email.
This latest problem comes just days after the recent release of a report showing the agency is falling further and further behind amid soaring caseloads and staff turnover.
As The Arizona Republic recently reported, nearly 1 in 3 CPS caseworkers has quit this year. The agency is 200 workers short of its approved staffing levels and 500 workers short of state and national standards.
Kids are sleeping in offices because there are not enough homes to place them. The number of children in foster care hit a record 13,497 in July. That's about a 22 percent increase over the year before, The Republic recently reported.
Pima County alone has seen a number of fatally botched cases this year. These include: Za' Naya Flores, who starved to death and whose caseworker copied and pasted his notes; Patrick Smith, an 18-month-old who was born with drugs in his system and whose mother repeatedly failed drug tests, but CPS still closed the case and the mother was charged in the death; and 11-week-old Vanessa Martinez, whose parents tested positive for meth and cocaine. The case was closed within months, and the parents are now charged with Vanessa's murder.
The agency also used a special "SWAT" unit in Pima County to rush the closure of potentially thousands of old cases instead of properly investigating them. The SWAT unit did not involve law enforcement but was made up of CPS workers.
Clearly, the system is broken.
When there was a spate of high-profile child deaths in Pima County in 2007, state lawmakers were quick to speak out about the need for CPS reform. But this time, state lawmakers have been silent.
The agency appears to be getting worse, instead of better. It is time for a lengthy discussion in the next legislative session about how to improve CPS by better retaining workers, making the agency more open to the public and providing adequate foster placements for kids in trouble.
This is Arizona's future. Ignoring the agency's problems only compounds its past failures.
When there was a spate of high-profile child deaths in Pima County in 2007, state lawmakers were quick to speak out about the need for CPS reform. But this time, state lawmakers have been silent.
(Source : http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/incomplete-records-latest-failure-of-an-overwhelmed-cps/article_d523fb91-10a3-5e00-85a5-472beaafa4f4.html#.UFun6W2S49k.facebook)
