Virus upends every segment of child welfare system in US
NEW YORK — Child welfare agencies across the U.S., often beleaguered in the best of times, are scrambling to confront new challenges that the coronavirus is posing for caseworkers, kids and parents.
For caseworkers, the potential toll is physical and emotional. Child welfare workers in several states, including Michigan, Massachusetts, New York and Washington, have tested positive for COVID-19.
Many agencies, seeking to limit the virus’ spread, have cut back on in-person inspections at homes of children considered at risk of abuse and neglect. Parents of children already in foster care are missing out on visits. Slowdowns at family courts are burdening some of those parents with agonizing delays in getting their children back.
“There are real sad consequences for folks who’ve been making progress toward reunifying,” said Boston social worker Adriana Zwick, who represents unionized caseworkers with Massachusetts’ Department of Children and Families.
For workers, widespread shortages of gloves, masks and other safety gear are raising concerns, said Angelo McClain, CEO of the National Association of Social Workers. “If a report comes in of a kid in danger, you need to go out and make sure that child is safe — but you need a face mask, gloves, sanitizer,” he said.
In New York City, the nation’s worst-hit area, child protection staff are instructed mostly to use “virtual visiting,” even while investigating potential risks to a child’s safety.
The city’s Administration for Children’s Services has provided staff with questions to ask families to gauge whether any household member may have the virus. If they do, the agency says special medical assistance might be requested if pursuing an investigation.
Many child welfare professionals worry the pandemic, by increasing stress on already fragile families, will fuel a rise in child abuse and neglect.
“You have families that don’t have stable housing, stable income. Maybe there’s a mental health challenge or a substance abuse problem — and now the schools are closed,” Zwick said. “That is a recipe for disaster.”
Teachers and other school employees normally offer a safeguard by reporting suspicious bruises and other warning signs, said McClain of the social workers association. “Now you don’t have those eyes and ears,” he said.
In Fort Worth, Texas, Cook Children’s Medical Center recently admitted seven children younger than 4 who suffered severe abuse, including two who died the same day.
Dr. Jayme Coffman, who heads the hospital’s child abuse prevention center, linked the surge of cases to the heightened stress on families during the crisis.
Because older people are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 and few children have died from it, kids have not been a focus of public health efforts.
That’s a mistake, according to University of Pennsylvania professor Marci Hamilton, also CEO of CHILD USA, a think tank seeking to prevent child abuse and neglect.
“Already some areas are reporting spikes in abuse,” she said. “If caseworkers don’t have that protective equipment, it’s likely we’ll have fewer home visits, and fewer home visits mean more kids at risk.”
For many parents whose children are in foster care, and who yearn to get them back, the pandemic has worsened their predicament. Many family courts have postponed nonemergency cases, and many social services required for reunification have been disrupted.
Foster care also is facing upheaval, with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services easing its oversight rules.
Under long-standing law, caseworkers are required to make monthly in-person visits to children in foster care. The agency now says caseworkers instead can do videoconferencing visits.
As for visits between foster children and their biological families, JooYeun Chang, executive director of Michigan’s Children’s Services Agency, said they’re no longer required to be face to face but can be done through Skype or FaceTime.