Social Worker and Foster Parents will stage a child crisis exhibit at the Dept. of Social Services with hundreds of shoes representing children in care and at risk.
WHAT: Dept. of Family and Children’s Services employees will join Foster Care parents and families in a speak out action to highlight the failure of Santa Clara County to agree to contract proposals to ease the staffing crisis facing children and families in Foster Care System.
VISUALS: Pop-up installation in the courtyard of the Social Services Building including hundreds of pair of shoes representing children, welfare system data exhibit with foster parents and social workers explaining: children who return to the system, reunifications, emergency response allegations, rates of stable placements and more. See end of advisory for example.
WHY: The crises facing children and families in the Santa Clara county foster care system have been a major topic of conversation by members of the County Board of supervisors in recent months – but the county has still done nothing to address a root cause of the failure to meet the needs of these children and their families – short staffing and turnover leading to missed visits, changing caregivers and many other serious problems. At the end of 2019, the Board unanimously called for a moratorium of the Receiving and Assessment Intake Center (RAIC), and as a result of an affirmative review, the processing center was closed. In numerous public hearings leading up to the review and subsequent closure, the Board asserted acknowledgement of its staffing level deficiencies. However, as negotiations on a new labor agreement have continued, Social Workers have been excluded from any proposals for wage realignments that would bolster the County’s ability to safely staff, recruit and retain employees to address the turnover crisis.
“As a foster/adoptive parent working with Santa Clara County for 13 years, I am appalled with how social workers responsible for children are treated,” said Erica Moore, a Santa Clara County Foster Parent. “Children wait months, at times over a year to get mental health care, educational support, and many of the other needs while in care. We cannot continue to remove children from unsafe conditions only to turn around and have the system continue to disregard their needs by denying them resourced, healthy, and appropriately staffed social workers.”
My coworkers and I in Emergency Response have worked mandatory overtime 7 days a week all year long – too many of us are having to take leave to deal with stress because of our workloads,” said William Bhader, Social Worker, DFCS. “When families do not get enough time with their social worker, we run the risk of inadequate assessment and serious issues facing kids can be missed. Salaries that are a living wage and attractive to new hires is absolutely necessary to address these serious problems.”
WHEN: Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 12 p.m.
WHERE: Social Services Agency, 333 W. Julian St., San Jose, CA 95112
VISUALS: Pop-up installation in the courtyard of the Social Services Building including hundreds of pairs of shoes representing children, exhibit stations by both foster parents and social service workers.
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Service Employees International Union, Local 521 represents 12,000 public-sector workers across Santa Clara County. Under a Community First vision, we are committed to making sure the needs of our community, and the vital services we provide our community, come first. We believe our communities thrive when residents, leaders and workers recognize that we are all in this together when it comes to our safety, health, and well-being.
