Total 650 words used.
Like many of the nation’s metropolitan areas, Saint Louis is still rebounding from the effects of Covid-19. While all areas of life were impacted, the social workers that protect children in the region were particularly shaken by the nationwide shutdown, the “great resignation”, and the subsequent surge in child welfare reports.
With the shutdown of schools and daycares, the number of child abuse allegations across the country declined by 40-60%. In Saint Louis, this reduction allowed available workers to keep up with the volume, but it grew increasingly difficult to maintain adequate coverage as the pandemic continued. As schools and businesses reopened, the volume of reports increased and it became a real challenge to keep up with standards.
In 2022, nearly 55 million Americans left their jobs in the “great resignation”. By October of 2022, of the 60 child welfare assessment positions in Saint Louis, only 12 remained filled. The challenge became an impossibility. With upwards of 220 new allegations of child abuse per week, workers were being assigned 18 or more, each requiring an average of 10 hours to work. With over 180 hours of work per 40-hour work week, the staff just could not keep up. As the volume of reports surpassed their pre-covid levels, the work piles grew exponentially.
Soon, workers were forced to prioritize their time and could only assess the most severe allegations. Efforts were made to see as many children as possible, but over the following year, the number of open reports grew from 3,600 to over 7,800. New workers found themselves instantly overloaded and left under the stress. Workers who stayed had hundreds of families in their caseloads, and by May of 2023, there were up to 120 children a week hitting 30 days without having had a documented visit from a social worker. The department had exhausted their internal resources and needed a radical change to ensure child safety in the area.
In June of 2023, Robert Knodell, the Director of the Department, was able to secure funding for a three-part plan to restore Saint Louis coverage and provide safety to children in need. Part one included hiring a partner with expertise in human service process management to take over the daily operations so that his staff could concentrate on specific practice needs of children. This company immediately re-prioritized the work and developed a new workflow that cut the work time from 10 hours to 5, restructured the staff into response teams based on allegation and risk, and developed automated tools to monitor workflow. The main task of this company was to fix the front door and assure all children were being seen timely.
The second strategy was a concentrated recruitment and retention plan to find and hire workers without overloading them. A pay increase was approved for the state and HR experts were reassigned to the area and charged with finding 40 new workers by the end of the summer.
The final strategy was to address the massive backlog and begin the task of making sure the children represented in each casefile had an advocate.
Since the Director’s plan was put in place, the results have been extraordinary. Currently, 96% of all new reports are assessed prior to the 45-day deadline. Staffing levels are back to 83%, and under the innovative process changes, new workers have been able to maintain caseloads of under 15 despite getting up to 10 new reports per week. The backlog is down from a 7,800 peak to just 4,422, with every family getting reviewed before closing. Children are being seen and workers are feeling that they are making a difference.
Achievements in government are often measured in programmatic changes, but Director Knodell led a change that can be measured in safe families and protected children. Covid wreaked havoc on many industries, this year, Missouri made sure Saint Louis rebounded strong for kids.
Nomination Title: Missouri Child Welfare Saint Louis Project
