Current, Former DCS Workers Say Kids At Risk Judge Quits Over Lack Of Faith In Department Of Children's Services

Homepage / Nashville News February 11, 2010

Current, Former DCS Workers Say Kids At Risk
Judge Quits Over Lack Of Faith In Department Of Children's Services
Reported By Dennis Ferrier
UPDATED: 8:08 pm CST February 10, 2010

Tenn. -- More than a dozen current and former Department of Children's Services workers say children are at risk from the agency's focus on mandates and quotas.

April Meldrum is the new associate dean at the Duncan Law School in Knoxville. But just one month ago, she was a juvenile judge in Anderson County -- a judge who dealt every day with broken families, struggling families, foster families and the DCS.

Meldrum quit that judgeship because she said DCS would not help families.

"As you're faced with making a decision every day of deciding whether or not to remove a child from their parents, you would like to know that the agency to whom you're giving the child would do a better job than the parents from which you just removed the child," said Meldrum. "It's untenable to be in if you don't have that faith, and I no longer have that faith."

Meldrum said she constantly had to battle DCS to provide its basic services like drug and alcohol counseling, anger management and just helping with paying a utility bill for a month.

"It happens routinely that services are ordered, and they not provided. Time and time again the department would return without meeting their obligation," said Meldrum.

DCS Commissioner Viola Miller said those statements are not true, and DCS provides services that are court-ordered in a timely and even urgent manner.

"Do you know that almost nothing that says to me makes me angrier than that? Because I love our kids, and I love her families," said Miller.

In October, Coffee County Juvenile Court Judge Tim Brock was so mad at DCS that he ordered every DCS caseworker and manager in the county to appear before him and bring all their cases and explain why kids weren't being seen sometimes for months and why services he ordered weren't being provided.

This was all done in the secrecy of juvenile court, but it isn't a secret anymore because of Brian Bagby, who resigned from his position as a Coffee County DCS investigator. He felt DCS was concerned with numbers, not kids.

"I just felt like it wasn't worth the job anymore," said Bagby. "I just felt I wasn't doing anything for families. I kind of felt like I was actually harming families more than doing anything good for them."

Bagby isn't alone: Three former and current DCS workers have also made similar complaints to Channel 4, but chose not to appear on camera.

When case managers investigate complaints that children are being harmed in a home, a case is officially opened. As long as a case manager has any contact with the family, the case remains open.

Case managers said cases often stay open for long periods of time because there are so many questions to ask, and they are getting pressure to hurry up and close the case as soon as possible.

"The department really wants you to get it closed within 30 days," said Bagby. "They really don't care what's going on, as long as the media isn't involved or a child doesn't die, they want you to close it."

Miller said there is pressure to close cases, not because it's costing DCS money but because kids are in imminent danger and deserve fast action.

"This is about kids' safety. We can't leave them hanging out there," said Miller.

But Bagby argued if there are 50 cases, that could be 150 kids. With interviews, court, counseling, psychological evaluations, Bagby said it ends up with a shoddy investigation.

"It just got to the point if you go to the house and nobody was on fire, nobody was bleeding and no broken arm, you (were told) just to talk to the family and kids for 10 to 15 minutes, get in the car and go to the next case," said Bagby.

Miller said DCS believes a case worker should be able to handle a constant load of 30 cases, and it's a well-documented standard that DCS is maintaining.

"We don't have a bunch of caseworkers with over 30 cases, and we'll be glad to show you that we have the data on that," said Miller.

But internal caseload summaries provided to Channel 4 by DCS insiders show some issues. In September 2009, for example, there were 75 case managers with more than 30 cases. This represents hundreds of Tennessee kids over the limit.

What Bagby and Meldrum are saying is even these case load numbers don't tell the story because it doesn't count the many cases being closed to quickly.

Bagby admits he was reprimanded by his bosses by DCS management. But he maintains that his supervisors at DCS required him to do things he thought were unsafe and eventually quit his job.

http://www.wsmv.com/news/22524714/detail.html