Study: DCS should be source to help families hit by substance abuse

“We are recommending essentially that the community not look to DCS as a first resource ... There really needs to be a community-wide effort to intervene with families early so the DCS response is secondary,” Paul Vincent of The Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group said at a press conference.

About 55 percent of DCS cases involve substance abuse when children are removed from their homes, according to the report prepared by the Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group (CWG). 

“The state has multiple initiatives on opioids and other drugs. It’s been the focus of the governor, and we think it can be an important resource for DCS if it’s ... organized and consolidated with other initiatives in an effective way,” Vincent said.

DCS spends about $24 million annually on testing and screening for drugs and $4 million on treatment programs; other agencies also fund treatment programs.

DCS Director Terry Stigdon was asked how DCS can differentiate between assisting a substance abuser’s family and sending that family to court for child in need of service (CHINS) proceedings.

“What we need to look (at) is what is best practice in the application of child welfare, but we also have to work in the confines of the law,” Stigdon said.

The CWG report listed 20 recommendations for the administration of Gov. Eric Holcomb, who announced Monday that he would dip into the state’s surplus budget of $25 million to boost salaries for often-overworked DCS case managers and employees.

“We have to reinvest, we have to reinvigorate our child services staff to provide them with better support, from the 2,200 family case managers to our 300 supervisors to our clerical staff to our attorneys,” Holcomb said.

Overall costs to implement the recommendations were not announced Monday. The study and recommendations will be reviewed July 2 by the Legislative Council, chaired by Rep. Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis.

“This comprehensive independent assessment is a critical tool as state and local stakeholders at all levels work together to improve our child welfare system,” Bosma said Monday in a statement.

One of the recommendations noted that DCS workers spoke frequently about a “culture of fear” that existed among staff. In some cases, workers worry about the consequences of personal liability from actions they take in handling cases.

Holcomb said that the DCS workplace setting should be transformed to provide a better network of support.

To address that perceived culture, Stigdon said she had met with workers in all 18 Indiana regions. “This starts with me,” she said, nothing that the DCS has hired 389 additional family case managers and plans to bring on 200 more by August.

Holcomb named former Boone County Prosecutor Todd Meyer to head up efforts to apply recommendations to DCS as associate director.

Half of the recommendations in Monday’s report had been cited among five previous DCS studies.

In December, then-DCS Director Mary Beth Bonaventura resigned after accusing the governor’s office of meddling in the operation of the department with an approach that would “all but ensure that children will die.” Following her resignation, Democrat leaders reemphasized their calls for an evaluation of DCS.

On Monday, House Minority Leader Terry Goodin, D-Austin, said, “Today, at long last, the people in charge of state government acknowledge that DCS is broken. It has taken more than a decade to get to this point, but we’re there.”

A summer legislative study committee is to took at DCS issues.

“My intention would be to ask my fellow legislative leaders to make a DCS study permanent so we can make sure the changes contained in today’s report are implemented,” Goodin said. “There appears no willingness among my colleagues in leadership or from the governor to consider a special session on this matter, so a permanent study until the problem is fixed would seem the best way to go.”