Child welfare caseload soars since Zymere’s death
LAST FALL, THE city’s child welfare agency came under heavy fire for failing to intervene before 6-year-old Zymere Perkins was beaten to death in a squalid Harlem apartment caseworkers had visited many times.
In response, the Administration for Children’s Services insisted that everything was under control, pointing out that caseloads were well below acceptable maximum levels.
The day before Zymere died, the average caseload was 9.2 per worker — well below the target of 12 cases ACS had set “based on national best practice standards.”
“Best practice” went out the window in December.
Following Zymere’s death, ACS began getting an increased number of abuse calls. As a result, by December, workers were juggling the highest caseloads in years — on average, 13.8 cases at any given time.
This is happening even as the city hired 600 more caseworkers last year; at the same time, however, more and more caseworkers are leaving, overwhelmed by a very stressful job.
The end result is child welfare workers managing more cases each week, increasing the likelihood of missing something or improperly closing a case.
“The caseloads are going up,” said Anthony Wells, president of Social Service Employees Union Local 371, which represents ACS child protective specialists. “You need to hire to address the attrition rate. You know in this period you’re going to get increased calls because of the high-profile cases.”
The spike in caseloads is just the latest symptom of a bureaucracy in crisis, a Daily News review of records and interviews with officials found.
As of last week, for example, ACS has been without an appointed commissioner for two weeks. On Tuesday, a day after he said not a word about the agency during his State of the City speech, Mayor de Blasio refused to give an estimated time frame for a replacement. “I don’t do ETAs,” he said. Two weeks ago, Sheila Poole, head of the state Office of Children and Family Services, the agency that oversees ACS, threatened to turn off the funding spigot if ACS didn’t get its act together. The state steered $858 million to ACS last year.
Last month, Gov. Cuomo announced that a temporary monitor imposed by the state would soon begin tracking ACS’ promised reforms. It’s not yet clear how much that will cost because a formal contract hasn’t been drafted.
And last week, the governor made clear that if ACS fails to comply with the temporary monitor’s “corrective action plan,” the state will impose longterm oversight.
The rapid decline of ACS began in May, when the city Department of Investigation issued a report detailing systemic failures by the $2.9 billion agency to properly track and follow up on abuse complaints.
DOI gave ACS Commissioner Gladys Carrion 30 days to implement several recommended reforms, and ACS promised to comply.
In September, came the death of Zymere, whose family had been visited repeatedly by ACS for a year. His mother’s boyfriend was ultimately charged with beat-