Local News - September 2003

Workload takes toll on DSS staff

Child neglect, abuse cases on the rise in Lincoln County

By SARAH GRANO

————————————

For the past five months, the Lincoln County Department of Social Services has become increasingly overwhelmed with cases, and social workers feel overworked.

“You do work long hours,” said Mendie Kelly, a senior social worker.

“I work weekends a lot just to stay caught up with paper work and typing, and you have to work overtime just to get your home visits seen.”

Social workers are supposed to handle around 12 cases at a time, but in Lincoln County they have to deal with an average of 20.

Because of their caseload it is not uncommon for social workers to work 13-hour days, said Tony Carpenter, the Child Protection Services investigation supervisor.

The more cases a social worker has to deal with, the more likely mistakes will be made.

“It’s always easy to see where we failed afterwards because you don’t have all the pieces, and after all the pieces come together you think ‘Yeah, I should have seen that,’” said Susan McCracken, the director of the Lincoln County DSS.

The increase in the number of child abuse and neglect cases is due in part to more people reporting suspected abuse.

There is also a rising child abuse and neglect problem in Lincoln County, said McCracken.

“General statute requires that social services has a certain responsibility, and I think we took that very, very seriously over the years,” McCracken said.

“It was ours. It was our glory and our downfall, and we maybe didn’t share it as much. We’re willing to share it now. We’re willing to stand up and say DSS can’t do it alone. We have responsibility, we maintain that responsibility, but we can’t do it alone.”

The DSS receives help from local law enforcement, courts and churches among other organizations.

“Child abuse is not just a DSS problem,” Carpenter said. “It’s a community problem. It affects all of us.”

The DSS is now in desperate need of more staff members to deal with the growing number of cases, said Carpenter.

“We never have enough workers. We could use ten more probably, and still be swamped,” said Kelly.

“It seems the more workers we get the more reports we get. We never get caught up.”

The number of issues in a case is also rising. Social workers have to deal with more cases involving physical and sexual abuse.

For the past three months the DSS has dealt with over 70 cases a month.

“August was really busy,” said Carpenter.

“Over 20 kids came into care just in August, and that’s unreal numbers in this county in just a single month.”

Many social workers also visit homes that are not official clients but are part of an outreach program.

They tell the members of that home what services the DSS has available to them.

Social workers also have to spend some of their time assisting with cases in other counties. Those cases are not included in the numbers.

Overwhelmed systems are becoming a serious problem throughout North Carolina, said McCracken.

—————

Staff Writer Sarah Grano can be reached at 704-735-3031 or sgrano@ltnews.com

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

Terms and Conditions