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March 30, 2005
DHS has backlog of over 2,000 child abuse cases, documents show
March 30, 2005 [Associated Press]
JACKSON, MS - Mississippi's child protection agency has a backlog of 2,863 child abuse case and its caseworkers take an average of 76 hours to respond to abuse allegations, documents show.
The backlog was revealed in documents obtained by lawyers suing the Department of Human Services. The backlog numbers, however, represent children who are not in DHS custody and not directly involved in the suit.
The lawsuit alleges the state failed to protect children who depend on DHS and the Division of Family and Children's Services.
Betty Mallett, an attorney with McGlinchey Stafford PLLC representing DHS, said the federal court has already dismissed similar claims by New York-based Children's Rights, which sued DHS.
"This is just another attempt by (Children's Rights) to embarrass the Mississippi Department of Human Services," she said in a written statement. "We believe that (Children's Rights) is just trying to intimidate the state of Mississippi, especially during this legislative session."
While similar data for other states is not readily available, Eric Thompson, an attorney with Children's Rights, said the numbers from Mississippi are unusually high.
"We've seen in other dysfunctional systems we have sued because they were not protecting children, we have seen backlogs in the hundreds, but I don't know of any other system where we're talking thousands," he said. "This has been a hidden crisis."
One document shows the number of investigations open for more than 30 days as of Jan. 15.
Of those 2,863 investigations, the region including Chickasaw, Clay, Itawamba and other counties had 79. The region including Covington, Forrest, George and six other counties had 817, while the region with Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties had 823.
Thompson said DHS' policy says caseworkers need to determine whether abuse or neglect has occurred within 15 days.
Another DHS document shows the number of investigations opened in each of the department's nine regions, along with the percentage of cases in which a caseworker responded within 24 hours.
While 87 percent of the investigations had a response within 24 hours in the region including Chickasaw, Clay, Itawamba, Lee and six other counties, that number dropped to 60.2 percent for the region including Hinds and Warren counties.
For the region including Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties, the number was 66 percent.
Caseworkers in that region also take about 270 hours - or nearly seven days - before they make an initial response, contributing to a statewide average of 76 hours, documents show.
Posted by Nancy at March 30, 2005 08:24 PM