Josh Brodesky: Is 'trying' the price we pay for an underfunded CPS?

Maybe it is good enough for workers just to simply try to see kids who might be in danger. After all, the agency is chronically underfunded and understaffed. It never gets much attention unless a kid dies. Maybe trying is all we can - and should - expect.

In that context, maybe it makes sense not to require CPS workers to see kids in order to meet their response times. Maybe it's all right that the agency has to resort to Saturday sweeps to catch up on cases (more on that later).

"The policy for us meeting our response time is that we have to make an active attempt to see the child victim," said Jacob Schmitt, child-welfare-program administrator. "So the actual response time is met once we've made that attempt."

But what if the worker doesn't see a kid? It doesn't matter. The attempt was made. Log it. And then trust the agency will follow up.

A little background. Child Protective Services staggers its new cases across four risk levels. The most severe case, a priority one, requires a two-hour response. The seemingly least severe case, a priority four, requires a response time within seven days. You might think priority-one calls would at least require a CPS worker to see kids - after all, they are at first blush the worst cases - but then you would be wrong.

A leaked email outlining the response-time policy from Christie Kroger, who works for CPS here in Pima County, breaks down various scenarios in which a phone call or a knock on the door is good enough.

For example, a newborn tests positive for drugs, but hospital workers say the baby won't be discharged for at least 24 hours. This is a priority-one case, but a phone call to the hospital staff is all a CPS worker has to do to meet the response.

Another example in the email is a child who is so afraid to go home from school that the police have been called. This is another high-priority case, but instead of going out to see the child, all the CPS worker has to do is place a call to the officer.

"Enter the date and time of the phone call with the law enforcement officer as the response time because he had just left the presence of the child and was able to confirm the child's safety," the email says.

For his part, Schmitt said there is a difference between the initial response and meeting the needs of children. Not all kids are easy to find, and it would be unethical, he said, for a CPS worker simply to make a call or knock on a door and then let a case slide.

"If the focus is being timely in our response, getting out there, you know, the hope is that the kid is there," Schmitt said. "If they are not, that's what we'll work on."

But given its history here in Pima County - where six CPS kids have died in recent years - why should anyone trust the agency with following up? After all, Child Protective Services has now resorted to Saturday sweeps in Pima County to try to catch up on cases. These sweeps - CPS calls them "Report Response Saturdays" - have been going on once a month since October, emails say. The last sweep was April 9.

"Clear Out These Dang Reports and Reduce Our Daily Stress Day!!!" a flier for one of these sweeps says.

Schmitt said the agency is usually behind on about 200 cases each month. That's mostly because CPS is so understaffed, he said. It only has 154 positions filled out of 219 it is authorized.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, right?

Judy Krysik, a social-work professor at Arizona State University, acknowledged Report Response Saturdays are an unconventional tool, but she said this is what happens when an agency is underfunded. You get what you pay for.

Besides, she said, "The conditions and activities that put a child in danger, you might be more likely to find on a Saturday."

So, do the sweeps work? Do workers see the kids?

"Honestly, we haven't tracked that information," Schmitt said.

Of course not. And that begs the question: What's more important, the stats or the kids?

"In the past you have questioned whether we were getting the reports written up in time," agency spokesman Steve Meissner said. "This goes to that effort. It sounds to me as though you are trying to characterize this as an effort to simply make our numbers look good. I don't think that's what this is about."

This is the point in the column where normally I end with a zinger. Where I say something like: Prove it. Improve the stats and make CPS workers see the kids.

But not today. That's just too much to expect from our state and this agency.

Contact columnist Josh Brodesky at 573-4242 or jbrodesky@azstarnet.com