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Agnes Holy
Eng. 1001-017
06-27-2016

ISSUES WITH JOB AND FAMILY SERVICES IN HAMILTON COUNTY

CINCINNATI OHIO.

Many families that go through the welfare system are left without help in despair and
frustration. Children are being separated from parents, eventually put for adoption, and help to
those parents never come. According to Moira Weir, JFS director, 70 % of the families
caseworkers visit have substance abuse and mental health issues. What is wrong with the
system? Why do records show JFS has higher numbers in adoption rather than helping families
get back together and get out of poverty?
Major ongoing problem seems to be with money on both sides of the system.
Caseworkers feel they are underpaid and over worked. Meanwhile JFS leaders are hiring
specialists to seek out the problems within the system to address them, spending hundreds of
thousands dollars yearly on their new salaries. Hamilton County Commission president, Greg
Hartmann, says that 40 % of the JFS budget comes from the Levy, rest is from the State of Ohio
and the federal government to make the total predicted funds for the year of 2016 six hundred
sixty-four million dollars (664), and only little over two million dollars are devoted for child
welfare department.

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It took a 2-year-old child to die of starvation abuse for the county to re-evaluate its
performance and purposes. According to the statistics, Ohio ranks last in the entire nation at
funding child welfare services (Enquirer). Hamilton County JFS agency had tremendous cuts in
employment the last eight years which resulted in limiting services and not implementing others
that led to the money the agency received being cut in half. 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. Moira Weir, JFS Director, issued a letter earlier this year to the
Hamilton Tax Levy Committee explaining the importance of increasing the Childrens Services
Levy. In her letter she specified present most pressing issues of heroin addiction epidemic,
increase of clients with mental health disorders, and domestic violence; all that led to more
children being placed in foster care by age one.
In addition, other identified areas that need improvement are more intense training for the
caseworkers, appropriate staffing levels, services for mental health disorders, addictions, and
domestic violence. The agency also wants to invest more money into programs, such as Kinship
Care Program, that would allow abused or neglected children to stay with their relatives instead
of coming into the countys foster homes. Also Gov. John Kasichs two-year state budget plan
has been put in place for teens and young adults, ages 16 to 24, to help them climb out of poverty
by providing them with intensive case management and tailored services to get them employed
and ultimately able to break the cycle of poverty and provide for themselves.
Kinship Care Program is the only program in Hamilton County designated to help
grandparents and other family members to 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 because of their ongoing problem with the deficit in

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the budget, there has been talk about eliminating this program, that helped hundreds of families
with financial and moral support to avoid putting children in foster homes. The way this program
functions is through social workers 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 and
monthly workshops for caregivers that teaches them how to advocate for children in school.
Also, there are workshops to teach them how to handle finances. Therapy and supportive group
counseling are part of that program, too. It is a much needed program that is less expensive then
the cost of placing a child in foster home with possibility of future adoption, and the countys
financial responsibility to provide for that child (Johnston).
Another idea for long term solution for kids in the system and living in poverty was
proposed by the governor John Kasich. His two-year state budget plan 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 new, young families. This 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. Noble but difficult, bold and challenging, much like
sweeping welfare-to-work reforms enacted more than twenty years ago said Joel Potts,
executive director of the JFS Directors Association. Because 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 (Candisky).
Recently Job and Family Services received two million dollars from commissioner of
Ohio to fix the problems with Hamilton County Child Protective Services. The Director of JFS

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services, Moira Weir, explained that it was necessary to hire an outside consultant at $50 an hour;
Ron Kirkendall. A former JFS employee, to form a quality assurance team that will watch for
trends and review cases for errors and opportunities to help children better. Twenty-seven
additional new caseworkers have been hired, and all are promised i-Pads to help them be more
efficient in filling necessary paperwork, which also has been reduced. In conjunction with that,
the caseworkers have been provided an access to the computers at the court house. While waiting
hours for the trials, they can use that time for filling out some of that necessary paperwork. New
workers have to pass more intensive training and six months of field work. In addition, drivers
were hired to free the caseworkers from driving clients to medical and legal appointments. Moira
Weir also started a new program called Higher Education Mentoring Initiative, which pairs
foster children with mentors who help them graduate high school and move on to some form of
higher learning, which is now housed at the University of Cincinnati. The program recently has
named a scholarship in her honor (Tweh,).
Commissioners have recently settled a dispute with federal officials, stemming from an
audit that found a wide range of accounting problems in Childrens Services. The county agreed
to pay back $ 22.5 million to the federal government. With it and that will leave them roughly
with 6 million left from money that have been set aside annually from Childrens Services Levy
to deal with these kinds of issues. Commissioners want to take advantage of this unique onetime opportunity (Portune). The debates are ongoing whether to spend it on other projects such
as childhood poverty or early development, restore some staffing and program cuts that
Childrens Services has suffered in recent years, or simply give the money back to the taxpayers.
This surplus to the budget may allow the county to meet their collective obligations to the
children without raising taxes. While Childrens Services funding and staffing have gone down

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from 1,650 employees to 850 within the last four years, and the results of the Great Recession
cut state funding even more, this is truly one-time opportunity for JFS to finally get ahead and
provide for what is the countys core responsibility to protect and care for abused and neglected
children.
With the money in place now, we should see more social workers hired with better
training and more broad understanding of their work, which will help in more accurate
evaluation of familys situations. Up to now, Hamilton County Job and Family Services was able
to only help deal with high-risk families. Surely, earlier interventions could prevent some
tragedies. The coalition of Human Services is urging governor Kasich to put the needed
resources behind his plan. Weir is also pushing for the funds to be designated towards child
welfare programs. More social workers equal helping more moderate-risk families. With the
levy coming up this year will Hamilton County Job and Family Services receive needed funds to
continue fixing the issues they have within the agency and supporting needed programs and
resources for families in poverty? The children of Hamilton County are the ones who either gain
help or continue to suffer from an abuse and neglect.