The Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families is struggling with staffing shortages and heavy caseloads.
The agency is asking for $10 million more in funding and 59 new positions.
Last year the Child Abuse Report Line received more than 20,000 calls and they expect to receive more than 21,000 thousand this year. The average wait time to report abuse on the hotline is about 40 minutes.
Division of Family Services Director Trenee Parker said child protection investigators are carrying an average of 22 cases, twice the accepted standard.
Parker said she needs 30 new employees, most of those to work as front line caseworkers. She said every year they’re seeing more infants born exposed to drugs or alcohol - spurred in part by the opioid epidemic.
“So I think that is driving up the numbers that we have," she said. "And it’s also presenting us with more challenges as families have deeper problems that go beyond just that substance use disorder into larger issues that need more attention.”
Staffing in the youth detention facilities is also lacking. The residential centers rely on seasonal workers and mandatory overtime.
Children’s Department Secretary Josette Manning said she’s seeing high turnover and low employee morale among staffers at the youth facilities. She argued staff shortages combined with increasing numbers of children needing more supervision impact safety and security at those facilities.
“Certainly when we have staff in our facilities who are being frozen over from shift to shift and we have these increased needs for one-on-ones with youth that pull staff out of their other areas and we have to reassign and do things like that, risk increases of course,” she said.
Manning is asking to create 29 new positions among the six residential facilities.
