Testimony on House Bill 1709
Submitted by Jenna Mehnert, Executive Director
Before the House Children and Youth Committee on November 1, 2007
The National Association of Social Workers, PA Chapter (NASW-PA) appreciates the ability to provide written testimony to the committee on House Bill 1709 PN 2270.
The National Association of Social Workers is the largest membership organization for professional social workers and nationally serves over 150,000 members. In Pennsylvania NASW-PA represents about 6,000 members and work to enhance the professional growth and development of social workers, to create and maintain social work standards, and to advance sound social policies.
House Bill 1709 establishes a Children’s Ombudsman Office under the Department of Public Welfare. The Children’s Ombudsman would investigate complaints in the child welfare system and recommend actions to the Governor and General Assembly.
In 1999, Senate Concurrent Resolution 97 of 1999 (Printer’s No. 1515), directed the Joint State Government Commission to establish a legislative task force to study Pennsylvania’s children and youth services delivery system and determine whether it was meeting the needs of at-risk children and families. The recommendations of the Task Force were released in a November 2002 report. One of the recommendations to improve the accountability of the child welfare system was the establishment of a Children’s Ombudsman.
Championing this issue since the issuance of the 2002 report has been Representative Julie Harhart, who also served as Vice Chair on the Legislative Task Force. Representative Harhart sponsored bills in previous legislative sessions creating an Office of a Children’s Ombudsman.
NASW-PA sees improving the accountability of children and youth agencies as a laudable and worthwhile goal. Children and youth agencies and their employees need to be aware of the laws, policies and regulations, which they work under to safeguard children. To that end, appropriate and timely training is necessary. This need for training is why NASW-PA fully supports a requirement that new child welfare caseworkers receive the majority of their training before starting their field positions rather than within a year of their start date. The need for strong training is also why NASW-PA supports on-going funding to the Child Welfare Training Program operated by the University of Pittsburgh.
House Bill 1709 seeks to set up this office as a one-stop shop where complaints could be lodged and investigated in order to remediate solutions. NASW-PA is supportive of efforts for greater accountability, but believes that other steps would be a better use of limited government resources in order to improve the accountability of the child welfare system.
Systems to establish accountability for social services must be designed to ensure simplicity of procedures and administration. The children’s ombudsman would have no real power under this act. They have the ability to investigate complaints, but information gleaned during the investigation is put into recommendations, usually provided to the Department of Public Welfare. Additionally, the funding provided to this office and the amount of staff the office will have will directly affect its impact on the child welfare system. Without a direct appropriation and reliance on the funding the Department of Public Welfare, this office could be quickly overwhelmed with the number of complaints the office may receive.
Having worked for the Secretary of the Department of Public Welfare, I have experienced first hand the limitations that are currently in place when trying to examine a county’s actions in a specific case. There is limited authority afforded to the Department of Public Welfare, and in fact, DPW does not have the authority to reverse or overrule an inappropriate county staff action. To ensure that children, and equally important, families are receiving a high quality of services in all Pennsylvania counties, NASW-PA strongly suggests that the Commonwealth raise the credential requirements necessary to serve in the capacity of a child welfare worker. The Commonwealth requires nail technicians and funeral home directors to be licensed, but we have in place no licensing requirements for those invested with the significant power of investigating families, and making life-changing decisions.
Creating an entity such as the Ombudsman would allow legislators to feel that it had created some meaningful oversight. In fact, such an office would have a very small impact on the services received by real families across the Commonwealth. Increasing the employment standards and compensation afforded to professionals in child welfare would impact every single family and child that comes into contact with a child welfare professional. This is one of those important moments where government can either create real system improvement to address why system doesn’t provide the level of care they should OR create some flashy new quick fix that in the long run will accomplish very little. I ask you to think about the standard of care you would want for your family. If tomorrow there was a knock on your door asking about how you care for your children, what credentials would you the person judging your family to hold? I would assume it would be more than the current minimum requirement of 12 human service credits and related experience.
Thank you for the consideration given to the concerns of NASW-PA in our efforts to help develop the very best child welfare system possible.