The District’s Child and Family Services Agency has laid off more than 100 child welfare workers.
Agency officials on Thursday told employees that 115 positions had been eliminated. Many of the laid-off workers were asked to clean out their desks immediately.
Among those fired were 57 social service assistants, who help the agency’s social workers with day-to-day tasks such as ferrying foster care children to school or medical appointments. Thirteen caseworker positions were also eliminated.
“These [job cuts] are based on the best interests of the children, youth and families we serve,” CFSA Director Roque Gerald wrote in an e-mail to agency employees.
Several dozen employees — many of whom had lost their jobs — protested the agency’s job cuts outside of CFSA headquarters just a few hours after workers learned of the layoffs.
The District’s Child and Family Services Agency has for the past two decades been embroiled in an ongoing class-action lawsuit involving charges of improper care of children within the city’s foster programs. The job cuts are the latest development in the agency’s long-running reform effort.
“Given the reforms that we’ve made, we can undertake the layoffs and still provide the service needed,” said Attorney General Peter Nickles.
Although 115 jobs were eliminated, the CFSA expects to add new positions once next fiscal year’s budget is approved. The agency’s current budget includes funding for 892 full-time positions, while the proposed fiscal 2011 budget provides for 840 positions.
The agency said many of the eliminated social service assistant positions would eventually be replaced by a similar “family support worker” role. Applicants for the new family support worker positions must have a college degree, Nickles said. In the past, the social service assistant position did not require a college degree or its equivalent.
Gerald said in his letter to employees that the agency would also add “nurse care managers” to assist with medical care coverage for children and families served by the CFSA.
