Caseworkers

It is an economic triple threat that could slash up to 5,700 jobs in Bucks County. In the spring, three of the county's major employers - USX Corp., 3M and the Warminster Naval Air Development Center - announced they were closing, moving or curtailing operations. Although many of the layoffs could be a few years down the road, workers at the Bucks County Assistance Office in Bristol Township said they had seen a drastic rise in the number of people applying for aid in recent months.

They've been called unqualified, untrained, incompetent. Yet, they are on call 24 hours a day, working grueling jobs that expose them to horrors that one retired employee likens to "spending time in Vietnam. " And New Jersey's child-welfare caseworkers - a safety net for the most vulnerable children - are the first to be blamed when they miss a falling child. After Bruce Jackson, a malnourished 19-year-old weighing just 45 pounds, was found in Collingswood, nine state Division of Youth and Family Services employees were suspended for failing to protect him and his three adopted brothers, who also were severely malnourished.

Seeking a better-educated staff for Children and Youth Services, the Delaware County Council yesterday approved $15,127 for two caseworkers to begin a specialized master's degree program at Widener University. Since 1991, the county has paid the way for department employees to enroll in the university's master's of social work program, which was designed by Widener specifically for the county, said Mary Germond, Children and Youth Services director. Only four of the department's 81 caseworkers have master's degrees.

The files of persons with AIDS or other communicable diseases who get state medical or welfare benefits would be marked with a big red letter "C" under proposed state guidelines designed to protect caseworkers from diseases, according to a Department of Public Welfare memorandum. Caseworkers who do not want to visit persons with AIDS or other communicable diseases could have their cases reassigned to other caseworkers, under the same policy. The policy, scheduled to go into effect next week, is under review as a result of criticism by the American Civil Liberties Foundation of Pennsylvania, according to LeRoy Hedgepeth, a welfare department spokesman.

A boisterous rally of about 100 state caseworkers yesterday protested that they have been made scapegoats for another horrific and high-profile failure of New Jersey's child-welfare system. "Caseworkers do not kill children. Caseworkers do not abuse children," said Carla Katz, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1034, which represents 700 Division of Youth and Family Services workers in South Jersey. "We do not need knee-jerk reactions. We do not need caseworkers vilified," she said in Camden, where the rally was held at a DYFS office.

Just one day after they were charged in the starvation death of their 14-year-old daughter, the parents of Danieal Kelly sued the city for failing to step in and save her. Yesterday, amid criticism that they were seeking to profit from their child's death, Andrea and Daniel Kelly were dropped from the suit. Their lawyers, Eric Zajac and Brian R. Mildenberg, said the Kellys agreed to be removed as administrators of the estate and to have a trustee appointed instead. In a statement, the lawyers said that if the parents were convicted of a crime, any money recovered in the lawsuit would go to Danieal Kelly's siblings, "most of whom are impoverished children in foster care.

A statewide walkout by New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services employees is threatened for noon Tuesday to protest what union officials have alleged is the state's failure to stand behind DYFS caseworkers. The planned job action stems from the refusal yesterday by the state Department of Human Services to provide legal counsel for two Gloucester County DYFS employees whom state police want to question about the May 1992 death of a DYFS worker's child. The two employees are a caseworker and her supervisor assigned to the DYFS office on Route 47 in Deptford.

Little attention is paid to prevention of child abuse in New Jersey, and the state's foster care system is in crisis, according to a long-awaited report by a blue ribbon panel. The 224-page tome was released yesterday after more than a year of preparation by the Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Protection Services. Its 25 members were appointed by Gov. Whitman following claims of a collapse in services, severe mismanagement and dreadful morale that was leaving tens of thousands of children at risk of neglect, abuse and death.

Two top managers at the social-service agency that was caring for 14-year-old Danieal Kelly before her death were victimized by their own staff, who lied about how often they made required home visits, defense attorneys said yesterday. In opening statements at the federal trial of the two managers and two staff caseworkers, defense attorneys also attempted to diffuse what lawyer William Brennan called "the elephant in the room" - Kelly's death by starvation in 2006 while the agency, MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., was responsible for her well-being.

Paula Soloman parallel-parked her hulking city-issued van into a tight space in front of the weathered white house. Finally, she thought, she was going to meet the elusive Nakesha Bridges. For months, the 19-year-old mother had been playing a real-life game of three-card monte with the Department of Human Services. Soloman, a heavyset woman of 44, assertive and earnest, in faded jeans, reached for her clipboard and camera. An investigative social worker, she had been working on this case since June, when a report came in that a mother was giving her 2-year-old son beer but no food, and punching him in the chest.

When doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia laid their eyes on Khalil Wimes on Monday night, they saw a broken and emaciated little boy. He was unconscious, sunken, and sallow, 6 years old but weighing only 29 pounds. His mother, Tina Cuffie, 44, had five other children who were removed from her care. She had taken her son to the hospital, saying he had slipped in the bathroom. She could not explain the sea of scarring along the boy's arms, face, back, and neck. Khalil died within the hour of blunt-force trauma to the head, a medical examiner ruled.

Since August, the Corbett administration has cut off more than 150,000 people - including 43,000 children - from medical assistance in a drive to save costs. That purge far exceeds what any other state has tried, health policy experts say, and officials may be walking a fine line between rooting out waste and erecting barriers to care for the poor and disabled. When most states were experiencing flat or rising Medicaid enrollment from the economic downturn, stepped-up eligibility reviews in Pennsylvania began producing a decline over the summer.

Philadelphia's Department of Human Services is planning an extensive reorganization aimed at reducing confusion over who is responsible for abused and neglected children in its care. Under the current system, DHS caseworkers, their supervisors, and outside social service contractors often are assigned to the same case. There are no clear lines of accountability and often work is duplicated. Under the proposed structure, DHS would do initial intake and investigate cases, but would turn over follow-up care to outside contractors.

A caseworker with the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services was charged Friday with filing reports for client visits he did not make. Scott Amrozewicz, 40, of Philadelphia, falsely reported that he had visited a Camden family on March 16 and May 20, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office said. He wrote an additional report claiming he visited Mercer County Correction Center on May 23 in connection with his work with the same family, authorities said. The state agency learned about the alleged fabrication after a family member called to complain that the family was not receiving services, officials said.

DHS needs best-prepared staff As noted in an editorial last Monday ("Keeping children safe"), the cty's Department of Human Services has made clear strides toward reform under Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose. However, one critical challenge still needs attention. In an open-records request, the National Association of Social Workers, Pennsylvania chapter, found that 81 percent of DHS caseworkers hold a degree in a human service, with approximately 35 percent specifically in social work.

A caseworker who said she visited 2-month-old Quasir Alexander on Dec. 21 had pronounced him and his twin brother "healthy and well" despite the fact that Quasir weighed only about four pounds, sources close to the investigation say. The boy, who lived in a West Philadelphia homeless shelter with his mother and five siblings, would be dead two days later from starvation and dehydration. Quasir's mother, Tanya Williams, 32, was charged Friday night with murder. District Attorney Seth Williams said Monday that the investigation was continuing into whether social workers involved with the family failed to "perform their duties adequately or possibly even criminally.

A federal prosecutor said during her closing argument yesterday at the fraud trial stemming from the 2006 death of Danieal Kelly that Danieal's condition at the time she died was proof that the defendants "didn't do their jobs. " Danieal, 14, who had cerebral palsy, died on Aug. 4, 2006. She weighed just 42 pounds and had bed sores that were bone deep. Four employees of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health - co-founders Mickal Kamuvaka and Solomon Manamela, and caseworkers Julius Juma Murray and Mariam Coulibaly - are charged with billing the city for in-home visits to at-risk families that were never made under a $3.7-million contract.

Within hours of Danieal Kelly's death, officials at the social services company responsible for the 14-year-old girl's safety were rushing to produce backdated paperwork in an effort that apparently included forging the signature of the teen's mother on a form, according to testimony yesterday in federal court. Written on the day of Kelly's death, Aug. 4, 2006, the document was an "encounter" form recording a home visit that had in fact occurred months earlier. Kelly suffered from cerebral palsy and lived in a West Philadelphia household with seven siblings.