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In August of last year, Paul and Cathy-Anne McKimmy became foster parents to two boys. The younger child, 6, stayed with them for several months; his older brother, 11, for about nine months. Read more
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PART THREE OF FOUR
In August of last year, Paul and Cathy-Anne McKimmy became foster parents to two boys. The younger child, 6, stayed with them for several months; his older brother, 11, for about nine months. During that period a state social worker was supposed to visit the McKimmys’ Manoa home every other month to monitor the well-being of the boys.
Yet the social worker assigned to the case did not visit the home even once, according to the McKimmys.
Paul McKimmy, a University of Hawaii faculty member, said he never even met her — even though social workers are required to have monthly face-to-face contact, including every other month at the home, with the children and parents whose cases they oversee.
Cathy-Anne McKimmy, a real estate property manager, said she met the social worker only once, at a medical appointment for one of the boys.
Despite the importance of in-person contacts, the Department of Human Services, which oversees the state’s Child Protective Services system, has struggled in recent years to meet federal standards in that area.
In a 2003 federal review, regulators determined that DHS was not meeting frequently enough with children or parents to monitor and promote the children’s safety. It was one of numerous problems flagged by regulators.
In a second federal review in 2009, the last major independent assessment done of CPS, caseworker visits were again identified as an area needing improvement.
The problem with timely visits is just one of many gaps that still plague Hawaii’s child welfare system, according to interviews with dozens of social workers, attorneys, guardians ad litem, foster parents and others.
Though the system is considered much improved from a decade ago, and the front-line workers generally are lauded for their effort and commitment, critics say problems persist. Many of those problems relate to a lack of resources, a rigid bureaucracy and poor decision-making by managers, they add.
"It’s such a mess that you can’t really pinpoint one thing over another," said Texas resident Terri Polm, who successfully sued DHS for negligence in the 2009 death of her 14-month-old grandson, Brayden McVeigh, at the hands of the boy’s father. DHS had an active case on Brayden at the time of his death.
The gaps are serious enough that several former and current DHS social workers told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that they believe Hawaii children are at increased risk of harm. They blamed funding and staffing shortages and competency shortcomings at the supervisory level.
"We have a really toxic work environment," said Emery Henderson, a social worker in the agency’s Child Welfare Services branch. "People are not allowed to question things."
Though DHS officials acknowledged some problems because of a lack of resources, they said the overall system works well and that is reflected in the state’s high marks in some key measures.
Hawaii, for instance, had some of the lowest rates nationally from 2008 to 2012 of children being re-abused following family reunifications, according to federal data.
On completing adoptions in a timely manner, Hawaii ranked No. 1 nationally for the past three years. When it comes to the timeliness and permanence of family reunifications, the state ranked sixth in two of the last three years.
In placing children with relatives, it ranked first in 2012, the federal data show.
DHS Director Pat McManaman said the No. 1 strength of Hawaii’s child welfare system is a committed, dedicated staff "whose skills are without peer."
She said the department’s willingness to collaborate with other organizations and its continuous quality reviews contribute to its success. The reviews include community members teaming with department officials to evaluate random cases and an annual examination by a citizens panel that picks what to home in on.
DHS officials acknowledged that a lack of resources has resulted in service delays in some areas, such as providing some court-ordered classes to parents. Some parents can’t get into courses for up to several months, even though the courses are part of service plans they must comply with or risk losing parental rights to their children.
Typically, the court must decide within a year whether to pursue termination of those rights. But because of the wait for classes, judges sometimes have to extend the deadline.
Judge R. Mark Browning, who oversees Family Court on Oahu, said parents shouldn’t have to wait two months for court-mandated services when so much is at stake. That’s not the fault of CPS, but a societal issue about allocating resources, he added.
"We’re talking about a fundamental, basic and one of the most important rights that any person has: to be a parent to his or her child and for a child to have his or her parent," Browning said. "You can’t shortchange those parents simply because we can’t get services. And it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating for CPS, it’s frustrating for us as a court, it’s frustrating for the parents."
When federal officials examined Hawaii’s system in 2009, they identified numerous deficiencies.
DHS failed to achieve substantial conformity to federal standards in all seven safety, permanence and child and family well-being outcomes measured, according to a summary of the review, which all states had to undergo.
DHS also did not meet national standards for timeliness of reunifications and for absence of child abuse in foster care, but met the standards in four other categories. In addition, the department failed to achieve substantial conformity in two of seven systemic factors examined, including training of staff and service providers.
Hawaii, like every other state in the country, had to develop a plan to address the deficiencies. Last year the federal government determined that Hawaii had successfully implemented its plan, including the standard for face-to-face visits.
Only one state, North Carolina, has failed thus far to implement its improvement plan and was fined, according to a U.S. Administration for Children and Families spokeswoman.
DHS is tentatively due for its next federal review in 2017.
The importance of home visits was flagged in a scathing court decision last year by Judge Gary Chang.
Ruling in a negligence lawsuit against DHS, Chang found that the department’s failure to make necessary visits to check on Brayden McVeigh and his sister compromised the accuracy of its safety assessment of Brayden’s home environment. Injuries to the baby otherwise might have been detected sooner, the judge noted.
Matthew McVeigh, Brayden’s father, was convicted of killing the 14-month-old, who died from head injuries in 2009 caused by violent shaking or striking. DHS’ negligence was a substantial factor in Brayden’s death, Chang ruled. The lawsuit was filed by Brayden’s grandmother.
DHS officials would not comment on individual CPS cases, citing confidentiality requirements.
But McManaman acknowledged that not having timely face-to-face visits is a safety factor and that the department has redoubled efforts to track cases, including hiring contractors to help with less risky ones.
Part of the challenge DHS faces is working with an antiquated, 23-year-old computer system.
Workers cannot pull up on one screen all the upcoming home visits that must be done in a given day, week or month. That information is available only by going into individual case files on the computer.
At a DHS office on Maui, employees get around that shortcoming by keeping tabs of scheduled visits via a large handmade chart placed on butcher paper that covers an entire wall.
Because of the old computer system, DHS officials were unable to say whether the agency was meeting the current federal standard — 90 percent of cases reviewed — for timely visits. Several current DHS workers told the newspaper that the department was not meeting that standard, which jumps to 95 percent next year.
"Our IT systems have handicapped us," McManaman admitted. "We haven’t done the best jobs of tracking these individual cases."
Help is on the way, though.
With an appropriation from the Legislature this past session and federal money, the department is planning to purchase a new IT system for the Social Services division, which includes child welfare, that is expected to boost efficiency in multiple areas. The system is scheduled to be in place by late 2015 or early 2016.
Another challenge the department faces deals with staffing.
DHS still is recovering from major downsizing that happened in 2009 and 2010 under the previous administration. About 25 percent of the positions within the Child Welfare Services section were cut, and many have not been restored.
"It was easy to dismantle," McManaman said of the downsizing. "It’s harder to rebuild it."
Turnover in certain areas also has been a problem. One attorney said four different social workers have been assigned to his client’s case in just one year.
Current staff members say turnover and burnout have meant inexperienced people have been promoted into positions they are not qualified for, contributing to poor decisions and workplace tension.
In a May worker satisfaction survey of more than 300 line workers, the statement that received the lowest score dealt with trust between CWS administrators and direct-service staff.
On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best score, the trust question averaged 2.93 — the only one to fall below 3. All other questions averaged 3 or higher.
DHS officials point out that 71 percent of the workers who responded to the survey have been with CPS six years or longer, 48 percent 11 years or longer and 20 percent 21 years or longer.
"I don’t want you to think we have constant churn," McManaman said. "That means management has been doing something right."
DHS officials would not comment on the McKimmy case or other individual ones, citing confidentiality requirements. But on the issue regarding gaps in social worker visits, the department said in a written statement that its "CWS staff makes every effort to conduct home visits. In some instances, despite their best efforts, CWS staff is unable to coordinate a date and time with a resource family. In those situations, CWS conducts visits with the child at school or during visits with their biological parents."
Jan Hanohano Dill, president and chairman of Partners in Development Foundation, which has a contract to train new foster parents for the state, said DHS is staffed by great, talented people who are saddled with an intrusive, rigid bureaucracy.
"It’s a toxic system," Dill said. "It’s not user-friendly."
But he is among those who believe the system is significantly better today compared with a decade ago.
As for future improvements, Dill tempers expectations.
"It’s just like moving a big ship," he said. "How do you get entrenched behavior to change? It doesn’t happen overnight."
The McKimmys don’t know what the system was like a decade ago.
But their recent experience with the no-show social worker contributed to their souring on the possibility of fostering more children — even though they like the idea of their 5-year-old daughter, Olivia-Jo, having siblings around.
"We just gave up," Cathy-Anne McKimmy said.
