Did Nikki Haley’s Coordination With Pro-Sanford Group Break The Law?

I am assuming that Sanford’s participation was illegal?

Just another confirmation of Haley’s corruption, disregard for the law and lack of ethics!
So, what’s new?
Haley needs to go! And, keep going until she sees the subSaharan coast.
Maybe she and her long lost twin Barak Obama can join each other and reconnect with their roots!
Goodbye Num Nuts!

A NY Times article is going to hurt Haley in South Carolina? Yeah, like anyone in SC reads (or can read, in way too many cases) the NY Times…

Haley is a liar…

Child-welfare workers in the Midlands bear some of the
highest caseloads in the state – with one Lexington County worker
managing 48 cases and 103 children at one time.

The Midlands
caseworkers are not alone, according to a review by The State of May 21
caseloads for every S.C. child-welfare caseworker.

About 40
percent of child-welfare workers across South Carolina – including
two-thirds of the workers in Kershaw County, more in half in Lexington
and 43 percent in Richland County – try to handle more than the 17 cases
at any one time that national experts recommend.

That work load
is far higher than the one portrayed to a state Senate panel
investigating the state Department of Social Services earlier this year.

The
agency’s then-director, Lillian Koller, told a state Senate panel that
Social Services caseworkers manage, on average, six to seven cases.
Koller later acknowledged that average — while accurate — was
misleading, including some staffers who only manage one case at a time.

Questions
about those caseloads are driving an ongoing investigation into Social
Services by a state Senate panel. Child-welfare advocates charge the
agency has missed cases of abuse and neglect that led to children dying.

Those
concerns are justified, according to Social Services’ own internal
evaluations of child-welfare services in South Carolina’s 46 counties.

The
State reviewed those evaluations and found that in 25 of 46 counties –
including Lexington and Richland – investigations of alleged child abuse
were more likely than not to be closed in violation of the agency’s own
policies.

In some instances, Social Service found, cases were so poorly documented that it was unclear whether the alleged abuse happened.

Other cases included documented evidence of abuse.

But the cases were closed anyway.

‘They just don’t have the time’

Jessica Hanak-Coulter, a Social Services deputy director, said the agency is moving forward with a plan to reduce caseloads.

The
department also wants to evaluate all 46 county child-welfare offices
this year to improve training, support for staff and oversight of
child-welfare services. Those evaluations now are required every five
years.

The agency also is hiring. The General Assembly approved 50
new child-welfare positions in the state budget that takes effect
Tuesday.

Those changes – and more caseworkers – desperately are needed, child-welfare advocates say.

Making
the wrong call on a possible abuse cases is a result of high caseloads,
said Carla Damron, executive director of the National Association of
Social Workers in South Carolina.

“You work the hours that you
have to work to do your job, and the burnout rate is huge,” said Damron,
who said she has received calls from Social Services case workers who
say their workloads are too high.

“What I’m hearing is that they
just don’t have the time and resources to take care of the kids that
were put in their care,” Damron said. “When you have a really large
caseload, you deal with a pot that’s boiling or you deal with the one
that’s on fire.”

Questions about caseloads

Driving
questions about whether the state’s child-welfare agency is doing
enough to protect children are stories of children dying after contact
with Social Services.

Some of those children were from Richland
County, the home county of the state agency’s loudest critics. The
children include Robert Guinyard, a 4-year-old autistic boy who was
fatally beaten in his home, and Bryson Webb, a 5-month-old who died in
the back of a car several weeks after Social Services had been tipped
off that he was in danger. Social Services said it was unable to locate
Bryson after being warned.

The Richland Social Services office now
is the subject of a state intervention with help from Wilbert Lewis.
Lewis retired after 35 years at Social Services but returned to the
agency, at its request, to lead a state takeover of the Richland
child-welfare office, where, he said, a team of outside caseworkers now
is helping meet demands.

That intervention appears to be producing
results, said Paige Greene, executive director of Richland County CASA,
a nonprofit that provides children with court-appointed advocates.

In
May, Paige said her agency had 110 new children accepted for new
services from Social Services, more than she recalls ever having in a
single month. That increase, she said, likely was the result of Richland
Social Services getting extra help and opening cases that previously
had been put on hold.

Senators reviewing the agency want to know why caseloads are so high.

They
asked Koller to explain the caseload numbers at a hearing set for
earlier this month. But Koller, an appointee of Gov. Nikki Haley,
resigned two days before she was scheduled to testify about those
caseloads.

The next hearing of the Senate panel is scheduled for July 23.

The
senators – Tom Young, R-Aiken; Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington; and Joel
Lourie, D-Richland – said they were frustrated the agency initially
reported caseload averages of six and seven per worker, only to find
that, for many workers, caseloads were many times higher, reaching 40 or
more cases per worker involving more than 100 children.

The State reviewed caseload statistics, finding the average of six or seven cases per worker is accurate.

But
that six or seven cases per worker average includes supervisors and
workers in training who may have only one case at a time to deal with,
Hanak-Coulter of Social Services said. That lower workload is far from
typical, she added.

Instead, of 705 caseworkers statewide reviewed by The State, nearly three-quarters had more than seven cases.

‘Going to need more staff’

The Child Welfare League of America says a caseworker should have to manage no more than 17 active families.

The
recommended limits are lower for some cases: 12 families for initial
investigations of alleged child abuse and 15 children for foster-care
cases.

Social Services says it is finalizing its own child-welfare
caseload limits and hopes to have them in place by June 30,
Hanak-Coulter said.

Under the proposed caseload limits, workers
who screen alleged abuse cases and conduct initial assessments and
investigations would have 10 to 16 families ideally but never more than
20 families.

Workers handling ongoing cases, where workers help
families address issues, would have 14 to 20 families but never more
than 26 families. Foster-care workers would have 14 to 20 children in
their caseload but never more than 26 children.

While national
organizations, including the Child Welfare League, have set
recommendations for caseloads, no set of standards universally are
accepted across states. That is because of the differences in the ways
child-welfare systems are structured from state to state, Social
Services officials said.

Hanak-Coulter said the S.C. agency came
up with its own caseload standards after studying how long it takes its
caseworkers to work cases. That review included looking at performance
data, interviews with caseworkers and performance coaches, and taking
into account the complexity of the different types of cases, she said.

Based
on the May 21 caseload statistics, 25 percent of S.C. caseworkers have
10 to 17 cases to manage. But about 40 percent of caseworkers have 17 to
48 cases, far above the number recommended by national child-welfare
advocates.

Caseloads in Lexington County were among the highest in the state, according to May 21 data provided to The State.

Out
of 705 caseworkers reviewed, five from Lexington made the state’s top
10 for the highest caseload per worker – shouldering between 41 and 48
cases apiece. One caseworker was responsible for 106 children.

Heavy
caseloads have been an ongoing problem at Social Services statewide,
said Lewis, the retired caseworker recently called back to duty.

Those
caseload levels did not get out-of-hand overnight, Lewis added.
Instead, they came as the result of cuts to staffing over time.

To
address the problem, Social Services is “going to need more staff,” he
said, adding high caseloads are only one factor impacting whether
workloads are manageable. How far a caseworker has to drive to reach a
child or a family is another of many factors to consider, Lewis said.

But
both Lewis and CASA’s Greene said the new standards proposed by Social
Services are appropriate, and would help caseworkers manage their work
and provide better services to families.

‘Really dangerous mistakes’

Hanak-Coulter
said Social Services is working on completing performance reviews of
all 46 counties to fast-track improvements to training provided to
caseworkers and their supervisors.

One part of the evaluation
looks at whether county agencies are following state policies in
determining whether evidence exists to substantiate alleged cases of
abuse or neglect.

In more than half of South Carolina’s counties, those policies have been ignored, according to Social Services evaluations.

According
to a review by The State of each county’s most recent evaluation,
Social Services offices in 25 of 46 counties more likely than not acted
against state policy in closing investigations of abuse or neglect. The
review looked at five randomly selected cases that had been closed in
each county.

Some of the cases reviewed – including all five
reviewed in Richland County – were closed against agency policy after
workers failed to document the case adequately, determine the risks to
children, make timely contact with children, or investigate parents and
caregivers.

In other incidents, cases were closed despite evidence that abuse might be occurring.

For
example, following the death of a two-month-old in McCormick County, a
case was opened and closed before an autopsy report despite the family
having an “extensive history” with Social Services. The mother had a
history of substance abuse, physical violence and “had stated that she
was going to kill her children,” a subsequent state review found.

In Greenwood, a case alleging sexual abuse was closed without the child having a forensic interview.

In
Lexington, a child said her father punched her in the face. The agency
only made one contact with the father, who said it was an accident. He
was punishing her, and she fell to her knees and he hit her, he said.

“I
can imagine how that happens if you have such a huge caseload,” said
Damron with the National Association of Social Workers, referring to
cases closed despite evidence of abuse. “Those are really dangerous
mistakes.”

‘Because we care’

Lewis,
who is now working to bail out the Richland County Social Services
office, said he recently asked a child-welfare caseworker why she
continued to come to work every day, despite heavy caseloads and
questions about her office’s ability to protect vulnerable children.

Her response? “Because we care,” said Lewis.

The
caseworker knows that she will “face great challenges, but that inner
personal drive, almost like a calling, has her coming back every day
doing the best she can with the resources she’s been given,” Lewis said.

When bad things happen to children in the care of Social Services, caseworkers feel “devastated,” he added.

“You’re
always going to question yourself, not just in child-death cases, but
in your day-to-day work, you will constantly second- guess yourself.

“Sometimes, you go home and you can’t leave it at the door.”

Read
more here:
http://www.thestate.com/2014/06/28/3537052/40-of-sc-child-welfare-workers.html?sp=/99/205/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy