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In this Thursday, Nov. 21, 2013 photo, Clarence Carter, director of Arizona’s Child Protective Services (CPS), shares what Gov. Jan Brewer’s reaction was when he told her that CPS missed investigating 6,000 child abuse cases, during a discussion with the Arizona Child Protective Services (CPS) oversight committee, in Phoenix. The revelation that about 6,000 cases of suspected child abuse reported to the state’s CPS hotline were never investigated has cast a disturbing spotlight on a state department in disarray as officials call for investigations and accountability. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Pat Shannahan)
An Arizona government official says his department will review more than 6,000 unexamined reports of child abuse and neglect by Dec. 2.
The director of the Department of Economic Security, Clarence Carter, also said in a plan submitted Monday night that all reports forwarded to case workers will be investigated by Jan. 31.
Carter sent the plan to members of the Legislature’s Child Protective Services oversight committee.
Carter revealed the problems with the botched cases last week and was grilled by members of the oversight committee on Thursday. He told the committee he would deliver the plan by “the close of business” Monday.
Child advocates have said that the debacle in Arizona reflects a common problem nationwide as child protective agencies are burdened with high case loads, lack of funding and dismal resources that force social workers to prioritize calls based on the most egregious reports.
Still, the reports need an initial review to determine whether they are worthy of investigation, said Michael Petit, president of the advocacy group Every Child Matters and former commissioner of Maine’s Human Services Department, which oversees child protective services.
“They can’t just park them and say we’re really busy and put them aside,” Petit said Monday.
Carter has identified a number of Child Protective Services staffers who will be assigned to investigate the cases, department spokeswoman Tasya Peterson said earlier Monday. An exact number of staffers hasn’t been determined, but Gov. Jan Brewer has approved using overtime for the urgent job.
So far, authorities re-examining the cases have identified at least 125 in which children were later alleged to have been abused. No deaths have been connected to the lapses.
Brewer added 200 new CPS positions in her budget this year to help the agency deal with skyrocketing case loads.
Meanwhile, state police are reviewing how the mistakes occurred. A captain, sergeant and four detectives will have their caseloads reassigned and focus only on the CPS investigation.
The investigation is designed to determine who authorized the cases to be designated as “not investigated” and to review the department’s policies. It is administrative in nature, and any findings of potential criminal actions would be handled by another team or agency, Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves said.
State law requires that reports phoned into a child abuse hotline be investigated. Yet beginning in November 2009, some cases were closed before being sent to a field office for investigation by a team of specialists trying to clear a backlog, Graves said.
The practice was suspended, briefly renewed the next year, and suspended again.
However, beginning about 20 months ago, a new team designed to help the agency overcome an ongoing backlog revived the practice. More than 5,000 of the 6,000 cases that were not investigated happened since that time.
Law enforcement agents assigned to the agency’s child welfare investigations unit discovered the closed cases in recent weeks.
Carter has said cases were pulled before they reached field investigators based on a review by a special team whose goal was to focus field investigators on the most serious cases.
Petit suggested the agency just had too many cases to handle.
“When you’ve got 6,000 backlogged cases, that’s not a function of a lot of people goofing off,” he said.
However, Petit added, the problem won’t be easy to address without a huge increase in staff at the Arizona agency, and the issue will be compounded as calls keep coming.
“If they’re going to do a retroactive on these 6,000 cases,” he said, “they’re going to have the same problems six months later if they don’t address the problem that led to this in the first place.”
Some Democrats have called on Carter to resign. But Brewer, a Republican, is standing by him — for now.
“Once we know what happened, then accountability will take place,” Brewer spokesman Andrew Wilder said.
CPS in Phoenix is a joke. I have spent countless hours in their office .The case workers take long lunches and sit around gossiping for hours. They make minimal efforts to get their federal funding. They receive more federal dollars the longer these poor suffering children sit in shelters and foster home. They also get more state dollars if they give kiss away in adoption. (Look up their policies on DES or foster parenting AZPS-MAPP or request their financial reports) They violate children’s rights to be placed with family- Jackie Parker and Margaret Strength are the biggest violaters. Case workers like Adam Denous show up to transport children smelling like pot. If you bother to write Jan Brewer she turns around and gives the complaint to the people breaking the rules. CPs is corrupt and they think they are above the law. They lie they cheat and they cause innocent more harm.