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Agnes Holy
ENGL.1001-017
06-13-2016

http://search.proquest.com/docview/1781402159?accountid=2909 Enquirer. (2016, Apr 17).

Use surplus to protect our kids. Cincinnati Enquirer Retrieved from

is addressed to public that takes interest in understanding how Hamilton County JFS is being
funded. It explains where the money is coming from to support child welfare and how much is
given. The county finally has a surplus in the budget, and now is debating what to invest the
money into.
According to the statistics, Ohio ranks last in the nation at funding child welfare services.
Hamilton County JFS agency had tremendous cuts in employment the last 8 years which resulted
in limiting services and not implementing others that led to the money the agency received being
cut in half. It took a 2-year-old child to die of starvation abuse for the county to re-evaluate its
performance and purposes. Because of the declining property values, the agencys annual tax
collections have dropped, which had an impact on the levy for the Job and Family Services.
Miora Weir, JFS Director, issued a letter to the Hamilton Tax Levy Committee explaining the
importance of increasing the Childrens Services Levy. She specified present issues such as
heroin addiction epidemic, mental health disorders, and increase in domestic violence; all that
leads to more children being placed in foster care by age one.
I found this article to be very informative. I was not aware how JFS was founded. Now I
have somewhat of an understanding why social workers assigned to my case will not do anything
about my children being victims of their fathers verbal and psychological abuse. To them, if

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children are not in life or death situation, it is not considered a high risk case, and therefore
receives very little attention and action.

Kasich's poverty plan noble but difficult

By Catherine Candisky

The Columbus Dispatch, ISSN 1074-097X, 02/08/2015

Is an informative article issued to the public proposing governors welfare reform plan as well as
tax cuts and more help to poor in upcoming budget funds. He wants to help Ohioans get off of
public assistance and climb out of poverty permanently.
The proposed idea is to focus on young adults, ages 16 to 24, provide them with
intensive case management and job training services to get them to ultimately support
themselves and their families. Many directors of different JFS and counties have expressed their
opinions and outlooks on this project, including personnel involved in coordinating this. The
two-year state budget plan will cost about $310 million in state and federal funds, ideally to
replace in the long run welfare summer work, and federal workforce programs. The challenges
associated with this plan include overcoming issues of drug addiction, illiteracy, criminal
records, and mental health concerns. Furthermore, the biggest obstacle is finding jobs that will
actually pay enough to live on for those that will be ready to work.
I see this as good intentions behind a good idea. Unfortunately, I doubt this will work out
because in my opinion minimum wages would have to be significantly raised. I see many people

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that live on welfare who have adopted it as convent life style. A lot of young teen mothers lack
self-motivation and ambitions. Living on public assistance is a generational disease, one that is
hard to break. This article is not very useful for my paper until the governor can back up his plan
with financing it and it is put to trial.

Johnston, J. (2009, Jul 06). 'Kinship care' programs for ohio kids in jeopardy. Cincinnati
Enquirer Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1080940529?accountid=2909

dates a few years back; however, the topic is an ongoing issue today.
It is a program for grandparents and other relatives caring for extended families children to
avoid putting them in foster care system. This article is speaking to people to raise the awareness
that kindship program cannot be eliminated because of budget cuts. Interviews that are included
in the article show how much not only financial help, but moral support helped families avoid
putting children in foster homes.
Kindship care is the only program in Hamilton County designated to help grandparents
and other family members care for their young relatives when their parents are not able to
provide healthy and safe environment for the children. It is founded by the countys Department
of Job and Family Services and it has helped hundreds of families. The social workers are closely
working with individuals, from helping them with filling paperwork for medical cards, food
stamps, and child care, to getting clothes and diapers, and even attending school meetings. They
also link the families to the community services, monthly workshops for caregivers that teaches
them how to advocate for children in school. These workshops also teach them how to handle

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finances. The spokesman for JFS explains in the article what other help will still be provided to
such families.
I am personally very aware of legal costs associated with obtaining custody of a child. It
is ridiculous for one to spend thousands of dollars to have legal rights to care for a child of a
family member, as well as the costs of raising a child. The process is dreadful and frustrating,
and only children suffer the side effects of this. Not only are they ripped out from their parents
not understanding why, but they are put in temporary foster care for up to two years before they
are placed back with their family members. The financial problem is within the court system not
the families. Maybe the judges and lawyers could lower the costs of their services, then the
county would have financial resources to move such cases faster.

Coolidge, S. (2012, Aug 21). JFS sees benefit of $2M infusion. Cincinnati Enquirer Retrieved
from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1080928274?accountid=2909

This article was published after JFS received $2 million dollars from the commissioner of Ohio
to fix problems with Hamilton County child protective services. Speaking to the public about
how the money is being used is the Director of JFS services, Moira Weir. It is in a form of an
interview followed by five cases that resulted in childrens death due to failure of the case
workers assessments.
Moira Weir explains that it was necessary to hire a former JFS worker as a consultant to a
quality assurance team that is supposed to watch for trends and review cases for errors. Twentyseven new case workers have been hired and all are promised i-Pods. New workers have to pass
more intensive training and six months of field work. Furthermore, she explains that drivers were

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hired to free the case workers from driving clients to appointments. Also the case workers now
have access to computers at the juvenile court with improved state wide database, and are no
longer required to fill out so much paperwork. Furthermore, besides spending money on the
consultant, case workers still have on average twenty-five cases versus eighteen, no i-Pods, and
infants and children are still dying from abuse.
Things like this make me wonder who is supporting whom? All those funds are being
wasted on consultants? Instead of wasting time and money on finding errors from the past,
how about seeking solutions for the future? I think that instead of creating new positions at JFS
they should hire more case workers, intensify training, especially in recognizing not just one but
all types of abuse. Most importantly emphasize on being empathetic and compassionate.
However, this topic is worth more research.

, B. (2016, Mar 27). Mentoring experience called JFS leader to public service. Cincinnati
Enquirer Retrieved from http:// Tweh search.proquest.com/docview/1775932421? accountid=2909
This article is explaining how and why Moira Weir became the Director of Hamilton County
Department of Job and Family Services. It also explains the purpose of JFS starting a new
program called Higher Education Mentoring Initiative.
Moira Weir became a social worker after being a Big Sister to a girl in foster care.
Helping this young girl has inspired Weir, a real estate agent at that time, to do more for children
in the welfare system. She wanted to help them and inspire them with her positive perspectives.
In 1993 she became a welfare worker and in 2007 took a position as a leader of the department.

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She loves what she does, and remains committed to finding solutions to bigger problems families
and children are facing today.
Reading this article has given me hope that there are social workers who are truly
committed to helping kids. I share her inspiration and hope to achieve similar success in this
field. This information has definitely motivated me to research Moira Weir more for my paper.