Anchorage Daily News

John Henderson works for the federal government, reviewing how well states serve children in their foster care system. At the Alaska Legislature's Foster Care summit Friday, he gave an overview of Alaska's performance in meeting federal standards.

Alaska's report doesn't look especially good.

Alaska does do some things well, Henderson said. Placing children close to home, with siblings, is one of them. Finding relatives to take in the foster children is another -- the success rate there is 81 percent. In urban centers, the state gets good marks for making sure foster kids get proper schooling, including special education and mental health services.

But Alaska's "needs improvement" list was pretty long, and some of the shortcomings, Henderson said, raise urgent safety concerns.

In Alaska, caseworkers don't make enough home visits. Henderson noted that a caseworker should meet monthly with each foster child, but that happened only about 26 percent of the time. Alaska caseworkers did worse in meeting regularly with parents -- only about one in five cases met the once-a-month standard.

"This is urgent ... critical ... (it's) a risky kind of a situation" that "must be addressed in a short period of time," Henderson said.

Alaska is also slow to investigate reports of harm. The state met the "timeliness of investigation" standard only 56 percent of the time, according to Henderson. With a dismal record like that, Alaska has trouble ensuring the safety of children.

Alaska was especially weak in providing services to troubled families early on, so that kids don't have to be taken away to foster homes. Few states do so little, Henderson said. He noted the obvious -- supplying more help at this stage helps prevent more disruptive and more expensive foster placements.

Many of the problems have a common root, according to Henderson: staff turnover. It's a "major issue," he said. In Bethel, he had "never seen such turnover and vacancy rates." Foster kids reported that they were tired of telling their stories over and over as new social workers came and went.

Office of Children's Services director Tammy Sandoval sat next to Henderson as he gave legislators the feds' sober assessment. To her credit, she didn't try to pass the buck or whitewash the federal critique. (Henderson thanked Sandoval's agency for offering a candid look at trouble spots in the system.)

Sandoval said her agency's supervisors have already moved to make home visits the No. 1 priority as caseworkers do their monthly scheduling. Home visits come first, period -- everything else gets worked around them. The agency has doubled the training time for new caseworkers, she said -- from two weeks to four, thanks to an extra $400,000 from the Legislature.

Alaska would be within four workers of meeting national staffing standards if it could fill all the vacant caseworker slots. After the summit, community relations manager Mike Lesmann outlined the agency's efforts to do that. With turnover running at 33 percent, it's quite the challenge and there is no magic bullet.

Flex-time scheduling is already offered to some staff and may be expanded to supervisors. Telecommuting options are being considered. Stipends for employees to continue their education may be offered again. The department is drafting an employee recognition program to maintain morale (though it won't include any fat bonuses -- too bad).

Lesmann said that "we certainly hear from staff who leave us that they can find better salaries elsewhere." But a state agency by itself can't do much about that. Pay and benefit questions are up to the governor and Legislature. The starting base salary for caseworkers is just $38,000 and new hires get a 401(k)-style retirement instead of qualifying for a guaranteed state pension.

Rep. Les Gara, who organized the Foster Care summit, strongly feels that caseworkers' pay is too low. He complained Friday that the Palin administration shows no interest in moving caseworkers up the state pay scale.

He's got a good point. Child protection workers are public safety workers. They are as important as police, firefighters and EMTs.

The state can't rely on the good will of big-hearted do-gooders to handle this job on the cheap. It's simple market economics: If there's a job you're chronically unable to keep filled, you have to look at how much you're paying people to do it.

BOTTOM LINE: Chronic staff turnover is putting kids at risk in Alaska's foster care system.

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