Children Services says levy needed to avoid cuts

Children Services Executive Director Andrea Reik said last Monday that the levy on the ballot this year is a renewal (and not a new tax or rate increase) of a 10-year levy passed by voters in 2000. The levy amounts to 20 cents for each $100 of property valuation, and would be termed for another 10 years. This equates to $60 per year plus some change for a $100,000 house, though this is a tax that property owners are already paying.

"This community has really been supportive of child protection and safety of kids," Reik said.

She added that the share of the agency's budget coming from the state is down to 3 percent after several rounds of cuts. Two levies make up 55 percent of the Children Services operating budget, she said, with the levy on the ballot making up 20 percent of its annual revenue, or $1.2 million.

"They are so critical," she said of the levies. "It's really critical for us to keep going here. We also recognize the economic times that people are in, but to sustain what we're doing we have to ask for this."

Reik said that the work of the agency is best summarized in its mission statement to protect children, strengthen families and secure futures.

In an annual report, Reik laid out the problems being faced in the county and how the agency is addressing them.

"The families we work with face many difficulties," she wrote. "Living in economic despair, often under the dark cloud of domestic violence, mental-health issues, and an epidemic increase in opiate addiction, the challenges these families face are great."

In order to help, she continued, Children Services prevention programs include the child developmental service Help Me Grow, school social workers and parent mentoring.

"We work very hard, if there are safety issues with kids, to keep them safely at home," she said. "If they can't be safely there - and sometimes they can't for a short time, sometimes it's longer - then we try to find relatives, or we ask the court for custody and kids are placed in the agency and we put them in foster homes."

If a child is in a foster home, she said, the agency develops a case plan, which is similar to a treatment plan, to figure out what services are needed to support and stabilize the family so that the children can return home.

"If that doesn't occur, and the family isn't able or isn't willing to respond appropriately, then we go to court and ask for permanent custody and put the kids up for adoption," she said. "So there's a whole range of possibilities."

The Children Services intake unit received 1,449 referrals of abuse and neglect during 2009, according to literature provided by the agency. A referral is an allegation of abuse and neglect of a child, and can be made by phone or in person. Of these referrals, the total number assigned for investigation was 500.

The agency also has a Family Support Unit, where agency educators work with families to enhance parenting skills. This unit also houses the agency's school social workers as part of its prevention programming. These workers served an average of 33 families per month in the Federal Hocking and Trimble school districts.

The agency's ability to continue its school social workers program will be in jeopardy if voters decline to pass the renewal levy, Reik said.

"They work with families that might not be in so much distress that we would be directly involved with them, but they definitely need help," said Children Services community events coordinator Sherri Oliver. "The goal with them is that they can lessen the stress on the family so that we don't have to step in."

Reik said she shudders to think of what might be lost if voters don't pass the renewal.

"What we would do is look at our mandates, and they would absolutely have to stay," she said, adding that visitation and preventative services would have to be looked at for cuts.

The safety and wellbeing of children is crucial for both their future and the community's, Reik said.

"If you really look at child welfare, it's designed to be the safety net for kids, and making them safe and supporting their families so they can remain there," she added.

By the numbers, Children Services reunified 18 children with their parents last year. The agency made 500 responses to reports of abuse and neglect, finalized 11 adoptions, had 23 children in kinship placements on average, had nine new foster homes licensed, had 34 youths in its behavioral problems diversion program, and donated 27 Thanksgiving dinners for families in the Trimble and Fed Hock school districts. The agency also helped provide Christmas presents for over 1,000 area children.