ACS reforms must have real teeth (editorial)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - There are two things that everyone can agree on: We need to protect children from abuse. And the current system, under the aegis of the city Administration for Children's Services, needs fixing.

So where do we go from here?

A series of stories in the Advance recently laid out many of the shortcomings in the system. ACS case workers are given ridiculously large caseloads to manage. Many of those workers come to the job fresh out of college, so they have little experience. The hours are long. The pay is low.

It's not a pretty milieu. Case workers often see the worst of humanity. Parents who brutalize their children. Homes where drug abuse and domestic abuse are rife. Clients can be confrontational and violent. Some of the worst neighborhoods in the city are an ACS employee's workplace. Gut-wrenching decisions have to sometimes be made to remove children from their parents.

It can be soul-killing work. The kind of work you bring home with you. It's no surprise that the turnover among caseworkers is high. But that turnover is yet another problem with the system. It's instabilities piled on top of instabilities.

Here's another, larger problem: The fissures in the system only come to light when there is a shocking event like the death or horrific abuse of a child. Then we hear the outcry for the poor innocent. There are calls for reform. There are promises from the city that things will be done better in the future.

We're not saying that ACS's job is an easy one. Think of all the families in the five boroughs. Think of all the houses, all the apartments. How is a city agency supposed to keep track of all the needles in the haystack and keep everybody safe? ACS investigates 55,000 abuse and neglect claims a year. It's a huge job.

Hard though the job is, however, that's ACS's mandate: To keep kids safe. And the agency has to do a better job. One child falling through the cracks is one child too many. A recent series of high-profile child deaths have led to a shakeup in the agency and the installation of a new commissioner, David Hansell.

Hansell has pledged reform. Improvements are coming or have already arrived: Increased staffing. Modernized technical support for caseworkers. Enhanced access to case information. A safety app for smartphones. Borough-based coaching for supervisors and managers. More money for preventative services, including 400 family treatment and rehab preventive slots and 200 general preventive slots in existing rehabilitation programs. New training methods for caseworkers. And more coordination with the Department for Homeless Services, an agency whose clients frequently crisscross with ACS. A metrics-based Child-Stat system has also been re-launched.

It all sounds good. Now Hansell and ACS must make sure they follow through and implement all the changes.

But it can't end there. ACS then must go further. The agency shouldn't act only when there has been a calamity, when the bright light of publicity is upon them because of a child death or some story of horrific abuse. The agency must constantly re-evaluate itself, judge how it does its job, judge how it serves children, the most vulnerable among us. And make changes if necessary It's something that Mayor Bill de Blasio must also make sure he stays on top of.

Staten Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn), a former ACS child care investigator and union vice president, has another idea to improve things. Savino is drafting legislation that would unseal unfounded complaints of abuse against parents for groups such as Seamen's Society which work regularly with parents at risk of losing their children to foster care.

Her legislation comes on the heels of the death Zymere Perkins, 6, in Harlem. An internal ACS probe said the death was the result of flawed agency investigation of Zymere's case. Multiple complaints filed against Zymere's mother were deemed unfounded, but agencies outside of ACS were never notified of the complaints.

More communication among agencies that protect children is a positive, but we're concerned that parents could be unfairly tarred if unfounded complaints against them are too widely circulated. After all, a parent could be the victim of harassing complaints from a divorced spouse, an antagonistic neighbor, anybody. There have to be some safeguards.

But still, it's good that the conversation is happening on this many levels. Real change is needed. The momentum is there now. It's up to City Hall and ACS to make it happen.