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Efforts by the Missouri Department of Social Services to increase staff retention in Children’s Division include restructured training and the establishment of higher-paying, specialized investigator jobs (Annelise Hanshaw\/Missouri Independent).<\/p>\n
Missouri\u2019s child welfare agency has <\/span>for<\/span><\/a> years<\/span><\/a> struggled with high <\/span>turnover rates<\/span><\/a> among staff who work most closely with children and families.<\/span><\/p>\n Children\u2019s Division, the section of the state\u2019s social services department responsible for foster care and investigating child abuse and neglect, has also had <\/span>seven directors<\/span><\/a> since 2018 \u2014 and during that time faced <\/span>intense scrutiny<\/span><\/a> from state lawmakers for failing to report missing foster children and boarding foster children in hospitals because there was nowhere else for them to go.<\/span><\/p>\n As Gov. Mike Kehoe proposes cutting $600 million in general revenue expenditures to address a <\/span>dwindling surplus<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>declining revenues<\/span><\/a>, the Missouri Department of Social Services is not seeking funding for additional Children\u2019s Division staff from state lawmakers.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur current focus is maximizing the resources we have \u2014 ensuring team members are supported, cases are managed effectively and staff have the tools they need to perform their jobs well,\u201d said department spokesperson Baylee Watts in an email to The Independent.<\/span><\/p>\n The department requested, and Kehoe recommended, the same number of full time equivalent positions for division field staff in <\/span>fiscal year 2027<\/span><\/a> as it received for the current fiscal year.<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, state lawmakers have filed an array of bills designed to address what they say are lingering problems in the division. While the sponsors of those bills hesitated to recommend additional spending, other lawmakers and advocates cautioned against imposing standards that the division might not be able to meet without more frontline workers.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/b><\/p>\n \t<\/p>\n Former caseworkers who spoke with The Independent in 2022 reported having <\/span>up to 80 active cases<\/span><\/a> \u2014 a workload that contributed to their decisions to leave the division. One former caseworker described the job as \u201cimpossible\u201d and said that during the three years she spent training new caseworkers, most quit within four months.<\/span><\/p>\n Democratic State Rep. Keri Ingle of Lee\u2019s Summit, a former Children\u2019s Division investigator, said \u201cthere is nothing more stressful\u201d than carrying the responsibility of a child\u2019s safety and wondering if you missed something important when visiting a child\u2019s home.<\/span><\/p>\n Investigators are required to make contact with a child within 24 hours of a hotline report of possible abuse or neglect.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll wake up at one o\u2019clock in the morning and think, \u2018I should have looked in that room\u2019\u2026or, \u2018I\u2019ve got to go make a phone call,\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019ve got to go run out at seven o\u2019clock in the morning and try to find this other kid,\u201d Ingle said.<\/span><\/p>\n Staff turnover rates have improved in both the division and the wider department, though frontline staff continue to be the most likely to leave.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Throughout the department, turnover stood at 30% at the end of fiscal year 2025, Watts said in an email to The Independent. The turnover rate in <\/span>September 2022<\/span><\/a> was 35%.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018This job is impossible\u2019: High turnover, low morale plague Missouri child welfare agency<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Turnover among frontline division staff, which include investigators, foster care case managers and hotline workers, was 40% at the end of fiscal year 2025. That\u2019s down from 55% in September 2022. But it still means over a third of frontline staff working in the division at the beginning of the last fiscal year were gone a year later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Lawmakers last year approved a 1% pay increase for Children\u2019s Division workers, on top of Kehoe\u2019s plan giving state workers a 1% pay raise for every two years of service.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Watts said the department is using savings from past vacancies in the division to establish specialized investigator positions with higher salaries. Watts said <\/span>the positions<\/span><\/a> \u201c<\/span>help reduce overall workload for frontline team members while offering additional support on challenging cases.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There were 79 vacancies across the division as of the end of November, Watts said.<\/span><\/p>\n But entry-level salaries for frontline workers are still low. The starting salary for an associate social services specialist in the division is $44,630 and $48,509 for a social services specialist, Watts said.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/b><\/p>\n \t<\/p>\n Some lawmakers don\u2019t think these efforts are enough.<\/span><\/p>\n Republican state Rep. Ann Kelley of Lamar said that throughout her tenure on the House Children and Families Committee, she\u2019s found it\u2019s not uncommon for division workers to have 30 to 40 open cases.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat is just insane,\u201d Kelley said in an interview with The Independent. \u201cThey can\u2019t handle that. You cannot give the amount of care, the [necessary] amount of time to a child when you have that many cases.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A <\/span>bill<\/span><\/a> filed by Kelley would limit division case workers to 20 active cases at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n Current caseload data was not immediately available from the department. But quarterly reports from the department show that the division is falling short of some of its own standards of service to kids and parents in the child welfare system.<\/span><\/p>\n Division policy requires that parents have at least one visit per month with their child in the division\u2019s care, unless a court prohibits meetings. An evaluation team established after the passage of a 2020 state law on foster care set a goal of each county complying with this policy 60% of the time. Between April and June 2025, no more than 6% of counties met this goal, according to an <\/span>October 2025 report<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n The division also struggled to meet policies of one meeting per month between caseworkers and each of a child\u2019s parents. Between July and September 2025, no more than 38% of counties met a goal of adhering to this policy 50% of the time, according to a <\/span>January report<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Kelley said that addressing high caseloads would require the division to hire more staff.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re going to have to hire more people,\u201d Kelley said. \u201cThat\u2019s just what they\u2019re going to have to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Kelley said that although lawmakers and the state\u2019s social services department should explore options that would not require additional appropriations, lowering caseloads would likely mean setting aside money for additional hires.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes, it\u2019s going to be an issue,\u201d Kelley said of the need for additional funding. \u201cBut for so long, we have passed it down, passed the buck, and nothing has changed. And so we\u2019ve got to put money where our mouth is because everybody admits that there is a problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Ingle said that while she agrees that there should be a caseload cap for caseworkers, lawmakers must also provide the division with resources to make that cap feasible.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat do we do after the cap is met?\u201d Ingle said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t [allow us to say], \u2018We\u2019re not going to put any more kids in foster care,\u2019 or \u2018We\u2019re not going to do any more investigations.\u2019 It just doesn\u2019t work like that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Missouri child welfare agency reports increased efforts to find missing foster kids<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Jessica Seitz, executive director of the Missouri Network Against Child Abuse, said that while her organization supports accountability for the division around caseloads, 20 cases is an \u201cunrealistic expectation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Rather than putting a specific number in statute, Seitz suggested a requirement that the division adhere to national accreditation standards set by the <\/span>Child Welfare League of America<\/span><\/a> and report to the legislature annually on its ability to meet those standards.<\/span><\/p>\n State Rep. Holly Jones, a Eureka Republican who chairs the House Children and Families Committee, said that lawmakers \u201creally need to look at our case managers and the workload that is put on them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Jones is sponsoring a bill that would require courts to <\/span>order additional parenting time<\/span><\/a> to make up for time a parent lost with their child due to an unsubstantiated child abuse or neglect investigation.<\/span><\/p>\n Kelley is also sponsoring bills that would require <\/span>caseworker training for youth aging out of the foster care system<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>mandate guardians ad litem to talk with children they represent<\/span><\/a> before important hearings to determine custody, visitation rights or support.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nStaffing challenges<\/h4>\n
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Proposed solutions<\/h4>\n
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