LEWISTON (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- Maine lawmakers will hear emergency legislation Friday to fund the Community Partnerships for Protecting Children, which DHHS threatened to scrap in early March.
The program aims to prevent child abuse. Community Concepts CEO Shawn Yardley plans to testify at the hearing. Community Concepts helps with cases that fall between "substantiated" reports of child abuse and "unsubstantiated" reports, called "alternative responses."
"That's a program that keeps kids out of the system and protects families," said Yardley.
Yardley said CPPC is not the most effective program, but that he feels it needs to be funded at this time. He said caseworkers are still over-stretched, just as they were 20 years ago when he worked as a DHHS child protective services caseworker.
"It was serious. It was draining. It was invigorating. I felt like I was giving voices to a lot of people that don't have a voice," said Yardley. "I can remember when I was first a caseworker and I had a big caseload and I got cases that were chronic, long-term cases. I would come back from lunch and there might be three new referrals sitting on my desk."
He later became a supervisor, and eventually a regional administrator in the CPS system. He also taught a multi-disciplinary approach to child welfare at the University of Maine for 26 years.
Yardley said he would sometimes have 40 cases at a time, but could only actively work seven or eight.
"Families that were fully emblazed in the issue of child abuse got our attention and that meant where there was smoldering fire, you'd say, 'there's something here, but we don't have time,' and by default what that meant was as soon as it erupted into flames, we'd run to it and put our resources there, but it's not a very effective system," said Yardley.
Trying to investigate one case could take hours -- following up with teachers or pediatricians or others with restrictive schedules. He remembers taking dozens of cases home at night as a supervisor, just to make sure they could get assigned.
"I never knew if that referral was going to have me knocking on a judge's door at midnight trying to get an emergency order signed because I determined a child was at risk."
DHHS did not respond Thursday when asked how many CPS workers they currently employ and if there are any vacancies, nor how many cases each worker is assigned.
Commissioner Ricker Hamilton said in an interview on March 7 that DHHS "has more staff now than they had in 2011."
Yardley said funding could help, but that the funding needs to be directed towards programs that promote prevention, and helping parents.
He said there are ongoing changes to how much DHHS can be involved in a case in relation to a parent's rights. He said with rules constantly changing violently from one side to another; it can be hard for caseworkers and parents to work together to protect children.
"If we've got to do such a course correction, then why aren't we paying more attention?" said Yardley. "I know the Governor has spoken recently. The first question I have is 'why did it take this for him to take a look and come out and say that.'"