We’re Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas and we care about our country’s children, particularly in foster care. A Department of Health and Human Services official told Nebraska senators that vacancies for child welfare specialists and trainees, and turnover for those positions, went down last year.

This Nebraska foster care staff is at the front-line when to protecting children at risk of neglect or abuse.

Turnover rates dropped from 32% in the 12 months between July of 2016 and June 30, 2017, to 19% in the six months between July of 2017 to Jan. 1 of 2018, according to Matt Wallen, director of the Division of Children and Family Services. Open positions went from 10% to 5.5% between January and December of 2017.

Wallen shared the information at a briefing for the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee on child welfare worker caseloads. They had failed to meet the standards of the Child Welfare League of America and requirements of state laws.

Julie Rogers, Inspector General of Child Welfare, stated in September she was “deeply troubled” by the high child welfare caseloads which continued to affect children in the state.

Rogers said when a staff is overworked, corners get cut, people miss things, and errors are made.

The department stated following Rogers’ report it was attempting to combat its high turnover rate and to quickly fill vacancies. The department was also studying its training, career paths, and ways to help better job satisfaction. Staff talked to team members in the field about how to improve their workload.

For initial assessments, the necessary caseload numbers for a month-long period are 12 assigned families in urban areas, and 10 in rural areas. Caseloads for families with in-home placements are 17 and out-of-home placements are 16.

The standard for in-home and out-of-home mixtures is 17 families or children. The caseload for blended first assessment, and in-home and out-of-home, placements is 14 cases.

Wallen told the committee that of 78 members of the staff performing initial assessments, 28 had higher caseloads than required in June 2016. On Jan. 15, that number had gone down to eight of 80, or 10%.

There is an improvement over a year ago, but in many areas, they are still not in compliance. In his report, Wallen stated, he was trying to establish progress toward meeting those standards.

More still needs to be done.

If you see issues with your state foster care system, report it on here, on the Kathey and Rob Raskin Stop DHR site. Then, contact your state officials and hold them accountable for providing better futures for our foster children.