The Child Welfare Services Stakeholders Group: Report Calls for Better Client-Social Worker Ratios

September 2002

“The nurses got it, the teachers got it, and social workers are next,” states Local 535 Field Staff Wren Bradley, commenting on the release of a special report by the Human Resources Subcommittee of the Child Welfare Services Stakeholders Group. “This report makes it official, the need for safe staffing standards for social workers, similar to student-to-teacher, and patient-to-nurse ratios. It puts the child welfare community on record acknowledging that it is the social worker’s relationship to clients that makes for positive outcomes, and that to improve the child welfare system we need to lower caseloads and workloads.” Bradley helped write the report, which is in the form of an official recommendation to Rita Saenz, the Director of the California Department of Social Services.

The report acknowledges that a key to solving the crisis in worker “recruitment and retention” is “good management practices that lead to a supportive and positive workplace culture.” “The report spells out everything social workers have been saying in official language,” Bradley concludes.

The study is available on line at the Department of Social Services website. It can be downloaded at http://www.dss.cahwnet.gov/cws/pdf/HRREPORT.pdf.