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Child Welfare - Not
A Risk To
Play With!
by Joy Jackson
If there ever was a time when child
welfare workers were thought of as heroes by the general public, that image
is long since past. Many people today believe case workers are "child
snatchers" who carry out their nefarious deeds
with the blessing of incomprehensible red tape. Today, workers are expected
to have sound credentials, always follow the rules, always get approvals
from all levels of management, be flexible, effective, efficiently and
thoroughly document their decisions while simultaneously being warm, caring,
understanding and error-free. Failure at any step of the process means
flirting with a lawsuit.
Even in human services professions, it is
important to practice sound risk management techniques. Use of these techniques
provides protection both to the agency and its representatives as well as to the
child and family population being served. Risks in the human services contact
are pervasive, diverse and complicated and can substantially interfere with the
ability of the agency to carry on it's day-to-day
activities.
All of society benefits from protecting at-risk children from neglect and abuse
from single occurrences and from ongoing harm. At the same time, we must take
steps to provide adequate protection to the agency, child welfare workers and
volunteers. Too much time, effort and resources can be retrospectively
deflected from the mission of the agency to protecting it and its
representatives from litigation, negative publicity and an unfavourable public
opinion. Child welfare agency, particularly non-profit ones, cannot afford to
lose the trust and respect of the community. A poor reputation makes recruiting
highly-qualified employees and volunteers, finding community agencies to partner
with and raising the funds necessary to carry on valuable, but non-core services
much more difficult.
As with most operations, many risks are easily identifiable. There is the
potential for injuries to children in care (e.g., injuries to children in
unsafe facilities such as children residing at group homes, living in foster
homes or in agency-owned facilities such as playgrounds). Physical, emotional or
sexual abuse can also occur when a child client visits their natural parents, or
while they are at an agency's playground. In those
cases, the public looks to the agency to explain how this could occur.
Over the past several years as a member of a Children's Aid board and a
practising risk manager, I have seen the negative effect a lawsuit can have on
the morale, effectiveness and efficiency of child welfare workers and
management. Often, significant funds and time are redirected from agency
administration and child protection to legal teams whose job it is to defend
workers, foster parents and the board against allegations of negligence and
abuse. If the court accepts these allegations as accurate more costs are
incurred to compensate the victims.
Even when a case is successfully defended by the agency, it can leave a stigma.
Often, those in the community remember the case and the allegations - but not
that the end result was
'not guilty'. Among those who
do know the outcome of the case, not all accept that the verdict was correct.
It is equally important to not only provide high quality child protection
services but to be perceived as doing so.
It is costly, cumbersome and time-consuming to recruit, train and upgrade the
knowledge and skill level of workers. Skilled, dedicated caring workers are the
most valuable asset of any agency. Information technology has increased
expectations among the general public who expect information to be shared
between jurisdictions so that children at risk do not >fall through the cracks'
when moved by their parents or care-givers. The greater needs of children in
care make it more difficult for caring, generous, but unskilled adults to become
satisfactory foster parents. Pressure on outside contractors to continually cut
costs may exert a toll level of service provide to children in their care.
Liability issues are usually of the greatest concern to child welfare
organizations. The reasons includes 1) the anxiety aroused among those
involved with the organization, 2) the negative impact it can have on the
organization's public image and 3) the unpredictable financial burden it
creates. A recent survey of civil suits in Ontario found that 40% of all claims
had physical or sexual abuse as the primary complaint. The next most frequent
allegation was a distant second - breach of statutory duty at 20%. Breaches of
duty include such things as inadequate, wrongful or negligent investigation.
Most lawsuits list a number of allegations. Other typical allegations are
negligence resulting in injury or death, separation from family members and loss
or reputation or employment by employees, volunteers or foster parents due to
defamation of character and emotional and mental stress.
Depending upon the jurisdiction your agency operates in, the limitation period
on claims for injury as a child may range from very short to extremely long.
For example, in some jurisdiction, the limitation period is six years from the
date of becoming aware of the cause of the injury. Where adults only are able
to trace the cause of their emotional problems back to their childhood
experiences through lengthy therapy - that awareness may only become known at an
advanced age.
One recent example I am aware of is traced back to alleged mistreatment
beginning in the late 1950's and ending in the early 1970's. In this case, many
of the defendant's to the lawsuit are deceased,
documentation of cases was much sketchier then than it is today and records of
insurance coverage during that period is virtually non-existent. The cost of
investigating, defending and possibly paying to settle this claim resides with
the agencies who employed the individuals named in the lawsuit.
This is not an isolated case. It speaks to the need to improve documentation,
communication between agencies and retention of pertinent records.
Another case, involving more current events,
deals with a child who died of starvation when his mother took him from hospital
to a homeless shelter. Untrusting of social workers at both the shelter and
child welfare agency, who in turn failed to communicate clearly with each other,
she ultimately caused the death of her son due to misunderstanding of proper
feeding schedules and quantities.
These two claims both involve agency workers. However, similar tragedies and
lawsuits can arise from the acts or omissions of volunteers and foster
parents. Allegations of abuse: physical, emotional or sexual can be made by
the child. It is the agency's responsibility to have procedures in place to
adequately investigate each and every allegation to determine if it is true or
not. Investigations must emphasize protection for both parties - the child from
abuse and the foster parent or volunteer from wrongful allegations.
Foster parents are alone with foster children whom they are substitute
parenting. Volunteers may also be alone with children - while driving them to
and from appointments for example. They too need policies in place for
behaviour while alone with a child. (For example, not providing the child with
treats which may be construed as a bribe or payment for inappropriate
activity.) Both foster parents and volunteers activities may have the potential
for injury due to motor vehicle accidents.
All parties, workers, foster parents and volunteers, may be sued if they fail to
protect the confidentiality of the children and their family. One example of
breach of confidentiality occurred when an agency learned of allegations of
sexual abuse from the children's school. The children were apprehended and
placed with a foster family. One of the foster parents and one of the
children's parents were co‑workers. The foster parent told co-workers about
some of the allegations. Upon the birth parent becoming aware that the foster
parent had shared confidential information he sued on the basis that the foster
parent and the agency had breached his right to confidentiality.
As with most types of operations, there are
many variations and permutations on the reasons why an organization and it's
personnel can become defendants in a lawsuit. This requires that the agency
take steps to protect itself and it's representatives financially by instituting
policies and procedures to reduce the likelihood of causes of claims arising.
Among these policies and procedures are:
-
well defined job descriptions
-
specific qualifications for each position,
including foster parents and volunteers
-
orientation, training and refresher training
for all positions
-
supervision of each position so that those
who fail to meet standards are re-deployed or terminated (yes - including
volunteers)
-
follow-up interviews with staff, volunteers
and foster parents who are leaving the agency
-
periodic, random interviews with clients
(families and children) to identify systemic or personnel issues
These remedies are not exhaustive. There are
others which can improve the organization's ability to prevent lawsuits and deal
with those that are received. Taking a systematic approach to risk management
will, however, improve the ability of the agency to pro-actively minimize the
risk in a difficult area of human services.
First published in
‘PublicRisk’ magazine August, 2002
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