The Joint Committee on the Judiciary met this morning for a discussion on child welfare in the state.
It was noted that there have been issues of understaffing and under-trained new hires. Many issues have arisen from this including delayed response times, delayed referrals and no court reports files with the court. These issues lead to a reactive involvement instead of a proactive one.
A major issue in juvenile delinquency cases is the lack of in-state treatment facilities for more severe cases. All in-state providers are considered before moving to out-of-state providers. However, in-state treatment facilities are not equipped or capable of accepting the more violent children. This leads to children being sent to out-of-state facilities for treatment. Currently, the children in these cases are placed in department custody and have to sit with CPS workers at DHHR offices or stay in hotels with workers while waiting for out-of-state facilities as no facility is available in West Virginia. According to the Bureau, providers have expressed interest in coming to WV to provide specialized services for more severe cases.
As noted, the state has a significant issue with workforce recruitment and retention. In 2022, the vacancy rate was 30 percent. Initiatives have been put in place to improve upon these issues. If a CPS worker was employed before June 2022, they received a 15 percent pay increase and will receive increases at two and five years of service. If hired after June 2022, then a pay increase will happen every couple of years of employment with 10 percent happening in the second and fourth years of employment and five percent in the sixth and eighth years.
The starting salary for a CPS worker is between $33,000 and $50,000, depending on location and experience. Youth Service workers are also at the same pay scale. The way caseload is allocated changed from allocating on just average caseload to average caseload and population. New workers are needed across the state. This has been applied to youth service workers as well.
The timeline for new CPS workers is as follows:
- Registered for new training and completed onboarding at offices: 1-3 weeks
- Attends new worker pre-service training: 11-13 weeks
- Assigned graduate caseload of 2 or 3 cases, which increase each week until equal to peers: approx. 8 weeks
Before hiring, a prospective employee submits an application to DOP (this will change on January 1 as the Bureau will move to a new pay system which will allow the agency to hire on its own), DOP places applicants into a registry and then the hiring district requests the registry. Interviews take place and qualified applicants are given a hiring packet and start date.
After being hired, a new CPS worker will begin training rounds and complete onboarding at offices. Then, the new hire will complete pre-service training (240 hours) which can be online or in person. This training is a combination of classroom and field training, which includes interviewing and the casework process. After this training, the new hire must pass a competency test. Then, the new CPS worker will receive a graduated caseload of two or three cases which will increase each week until they reach a full caseload.
