Delaware’s Department of Services for Children, Youth and Families has requested state funding to add support staff for children in their crisis beds, but the agency is already struggling to retain front-line staff.
About a quarter of positions within the Kids Department are currently vacant; practically every branch of state government is facing similar staffing woes.
But as it renovates a building on its campus outside Wilmington to provide additional beds for youth experiencing behavioral health crises, the agency also wants to add three full-time staffers and a contracted behavioral analyst to shore up its crisis services. Secretary Josette Manning told the Joint Finance committee last week the additional staff will allow her department to offer more substantial transitional care for youth staying in the center's diagnostic beds — between 8 and 10, depending on the need — for up to thirty days.
"These beds will provide an opportunity for us to actually assess – to hit the pause button in the process," she said. "Because a lot of the time, as you know, when you’re trying to find a placement for youth, you’re working quickly."
Manning acknowledges her agency’s vacancies are concentrated in front-line positions like those at the crisis center. Some she says have left to take new jobs in public schools – an unintended consequence of the General Assembly’s ongoing efforts to require schools to add mental health counselors to their staff.
"It’s wonderful we add all those resources to schools, but then our folks leave to go to those jobs because they may make a higher salary, but it’s also a higher quality of life. My front-line can’t leave at 4:30, and sometimes they’re spending a night with a kid trying to find a placement for them."
The Department requested roughly $830,000 for additional staff at its crisis facility, which is on track to open in 2025. In the interim, the staff would work at the department’s existing crisis center.
