Social Workers in Child Services: A Day in the Life
Social workers in child services cover a range of positions, but their main job involves protecting children in crisis. They’re often some of the first responders when a child needs help. When not responding to calls, these social workers take care of multiple ongoing cases, responsibilities, and appointments. They play an essential role in child welfare, but several obstacles lead to high turnover rates and unsustainable practices.
To better address the child welfare crisis in America, we need to understand the duties and challenges social workers face. Recently, a social worker at Tennessee’s Department of Child Services (DCS), Dan, sat down with us to share his insight. Read on to get a first-person perspective and learn about the role social workers play in ending the crisis.
A Midnight Start
Office hours may be from 9 am to 5 pm, but children need help at all hours. Dan begins by telling us about a call he received at 11:30 pm. The police had responded to a noise complaint and discovered a young girl who needed to be removed from the situation for her safety. He quickly headed out.
Once Dan arrived, he tried to reassure the girl, Kaya, while getting her information from her birth parents. It was a difficult task; mom and dad begged him and the police to let them keep their daughter. Their distress alarmed Kaya, who began to cry quietly.
“It was a terrible night for everyone, but especially her,” Dan says.
Finally, Dan brought Kaya to the local DCS office. He helped her get settled on a couch to sleep before searching for a foster family to take her in. He got several no’s before one family said they could take her for three days. It was the best he could do, so he agreed, buying more time to find Kaya a long-term placement.
Dan gently woke Kaya in the morning. As he did, however, he saw something he couldn’t see the night before: lice. His plans to take Kaya straight to her foster home changed, and he immediately booked an urgent appointment to treat her lice. Dan also had to feed Kaya, so he let her choose where to get breakfast on their way to the appointment. They finally made it to Kaya’s short-term foster family two and a half hours later.
The Brunt of Emotions
Back at the DCS office, Dan spends many hours supervising visitations for the children on his caseload. These visitations help maintain relationships between a child and their birth parents. That said, they don’t always go smoothly. Dan oversaw a morning visitation between a young boy, Lucas, and his birth parents. The visit itself went well, but Lucas threw a tantrum when the time came to leave. His outburst led to his parents getting upset as well.
“It’s a tough moment because of course he didn’t want to leave his parents,” Dan says. “How do you explain to a six-year-old that he can’t be with Mom and Dad right now?”
An hour later, Dan supervised a visit between 13-year-old Justin and his mother. The preteen made it clear he didn’t want to be there. Dan remembers Justin folding his arms and refusing to look at his mom. When she asked him questions, Justin gave one-word answers or none at all.
After both Lucas’s and Justin’s sessions, the parents took their frustrations out on Dan, which is unfortunately common for social workers. In these situations, parents often feel betrayed or let down by the state and helpless to protect their child. Dan is used to being on the receiving end of these emotions, accused of brainwashing children, keeping visitations too short, setting parents up to fail, and more.
In moments like these, Dan reminds himself of his “why.” Just last week, he got to send a kid home to his family.
“It was an incredible moment,” Dan says. “He got to see his parents fight for him and put him above everything else. If I could get every kid back with their birth parents, I would. That’s the ultimate joy for me.”
A Heavy Case Load
Dan spends the rest of the day juggling health appointments, court dates, and school for all the children whose cases he manages. All youth entering custody must receive a health screening within 72 hours, and if no placement becomes available, Dan is the one who must take them. He’s also in charge of getting them to and from school and court dates until a placement is found.
If a child is placed in a kinship or foster family, Dan still works closely with them. If a child becomes sick at school and the family can’t pick them up, Dan must watch them at the DCS office until their guardian can take them home. Children in state custody also have frequent court dates. If no one can drive the child, Dan brings them there and back. Keep in mind, while Dan’s cases originate from the county he works in, the children may be placed in different counties. This adds significant travel time to his already tight shedule.
“We try to help each other out,” Dan says. “If my coworker needs to pick up a child from the same county I’m bringing a child from, I’ll pick them both up. Then we’ll trade.”
Yet, many states report high turnover rates for social workers, and most cite heavy caseloads as a major factor. For example, in Tennessee, the state advises that social workers ought to have 20 cases. In reality, they juggle as many as 35. Tennessee has started to make positive changes, but we still have work to do.
Supporting Social Workers in Child Services
One of the most important ways we can support social workers in child services is by preventing children from entering foster care. Preservation and Reunification is one of the first tiers of our solution to end the child welfare crisis, the Well-Being Support Ecosystem. By uniting state governments, nonprofits, businesses, churches, and individuals, we can prevent as many as 67% of foster cases. This alone would free up social workers’ caseloads significantly, leading to more time, energy, and resources for those remaining.
We invite you to help us end the child welfare crisis in America so that Dan and other social workers in child services can help families stay together. Our nation’s children deserve to live in safe, happy, healthy families. Be a part of the movement by donating today.
