Review of 1992 CSD study by Southern Maine University
By John Gilman, rev. 10/31/1998
Introduction – The Oregon Child Protective Services Performance Study was authored in 1992 at the request of the Oregon State Legislature. At that time, State Office for Services to Children and Families (SOSCF or SCF for short) went by the name Children’s Services Division (CSD). The study runs several hundred pages. It was conducted over a seven-month period from late 1991 to early 1992. The study is remarkably comprehensive: Researchers visited each branch office for 2-3 days. Researchers also conducted about 300 interviews. Researchers convened numerous focus groups and reviewed about 400 individual cases. A toll-free hotline took calls from more than 300 Oregon families and caseworkers. Other states were contacted for comparative information. The study may still be ordered from the National Child Welfare Resources Center at 207.780.4430. My copy cost $11.00 in late 1998.
Discussion – The study has two parts. Part 1 analyzes agency performance in nine chapters. Chapters 1,2,4,5, and 8 deal with issues unrelated to SCF conduct toward families. Those will not be included in this summary. Part 2 recommends changes to CSD/SCF practice in three sections. Part 2 may be found elsewhere on this website, but its summary is briefly discussed here.
Using clinical, emotionless language, the study discloses numerous serious problems at CSD/SCF. These begin in Chapter 3, a review of CSD/SCF's organizational structure. Researchers question agency power, secrecy, and lack of due process. Consider these findings:
"CSD management has a credibility problem in the field, fueled by selected members of the media. However, the problem is not limited to the media. Signs of distrust were present among other sectors as well, ranging from workers to a a state advisory committee member...one explanation may be management's attempt to support staff in controversial or damaging casework decisions .... The overall impression is that the agency has too much power and exercises it arbitrarily." pg 3-21
"As an external study group, we have been barraged with telephone calls and letters from CSD clients, attorneys, relatives of clients, and others who are very angry with the agency. We have logged over 500 calls from Oregon citizens since the study began.... The quantity and emotional content of the calls indicate the agency has more than an image problem." pg 3-34
"Oregon has many [casework accountability] structures in place yet citizens across the state from clients to judges and legislators cry out for more accountability. Why? The reason must be found in the power of the agency. It is difficult to think of a way to satisfy the need for accountability without reducing the agency's power.... Any agency with tremendous power which operates largely in secrecy is going to be misunderstood. As long as the law accords the agency the authority to remove children...accountability will be an issue. pg 3-40
Another element of CSD/SCF organization has to do with permanency planning - the process in which kids long held in the system are finally disposed of. Here, too, the study finds serious problems:
"Permanency planning has become a stumbling block to the overall performance of CSD....it tends to be mired in the 1970's notion that permanency means adoption." "The very criterion the agency uses for screening cases into the permanency planning unit, namely the child's adoptability, gives second class status to the goal of returning the child home." pg 3-37.
Permanency is also briefly discussed in Chapter 6: "Workers report that about 20% of children who enter permanency planning eventually return to their parents.... This is a direct result of the agency's belief that without the threat of termination of parental rights, there is little chance of getting parents to change their behavior." pg 6-22
Chapter 6 analyzes CSD/SCF policy in light of the philosophy behind its creation: that children would be protected by services, not police action. The report finds CSD/SCF conduct at variance:
"There is no policy which requires CSD to tell a family its assessment led it to determine abuse did or did not occur.... The result is that CSD may remove a child from her home, place the child...and compel the parents to cooperate with services without informing parents whether abuse took place, or even whether any determination has been made at all....failure to inform the family...makes the agency appear secretive and conspiritorial, it also means the family loses its right to grieve the determination." pg 6-8.
"To parents who find themselves accused of abuse and/or neglect, this is clearly a police agency, but it carries out that function without providing any of the normal due process protections for those accused." pg 6-10
"By limiting how information is stored and shared, CSD makes itself less vulnerable to those who would question it on specific case decisions." pg 6-10
The report goes on to analyze CSD/SCF's power over parents. It concludes:
"Workers implied they could not be confrontational with parents without the official support of a legal process that would give them the upperhand. This represents...an authority relationship, not a casework relationship." pg 6-22
"Too much power is removed from parents when their children are placed into CSD/SCF custody....parents retain nothing in the way of decision-making power. It is as if their rights had been terminated." pg 6-22
The report points out shortcomings in exercise of power over parents with respect to medical care for children:
"...if the information we received in client interviews is to be given credence, CSD may in fact fail to provide adequate medical care, precisely because it fails to assume that parents intend the best for their children and often refuses to listen when parents attempt to inform the agency of a child's...medical issues." pg 6-23
The report illustrates CSD abuse of power with a single story:
"She complained bitterly about the initiation of her case. Her son was interviewed at the school and immediately removed into CSD temporary custody. The caseworker and a policeman appeared at her worksite and began questioning her about her methods of disciplining her son. Only when she asked what this was about was she told there had been a report of abuse. Weeks later the caseworker told her that it was due solely to the hostility she exhibited when questioned about her disciplinary methods that the child was not immediately returned." pg 6-20.
Chapter 7 reviews CSD/SCF conduct with respect to its own policy. Here, too, the study finds problems:
"CSD policy emphasizes...no single caseworker is to make unilateral decisions affecting the lives of children and families....in 23% of the cases there was no documentation that anyone had assisted the caseworker in the decision [to remove children], even after accounting for cases in which someone had helped but it was not clear who....it represents a significant lack of compliance with a very basic tenet of the agency's philosophy." pg 7-10
SCF is by law allowed to remove children from families in emergencies. Lay readers might think an "emergency" strictly means a crying and bloody child, a stained dress, or other horrifying scenario. Actually, agency policy is far more inclusive: any injury to a child is classified by the agency as an emergency. Even by its own broad definition, the study finds SCF conduct is again at variance with policy:
"While only 9% of reports are classified at the onset of the investigation as emergencies, 19% of the children are removed from their homes. This discrepancy may suggest that either criteria for classifying cases as emergencies are insensitive to actual differences among cases or that too many children are being removed on an emergency basis. Our overall analysis of the agency leads us to conclude that the latter is true." pg 7-2
SCF is allowed by law to interview children at school, away from parents. Here also, the study finds agency conduct again excessive:
"...clearly [there] is something amiss when so few cases are deemed emergencies and yet more than 67% involve caseworker interviews with children without prior parental knowledge." pg 7-11
SCF is required to develop case plans for families in the system. The study questions if case plans are really taken seriously by the agency:
"Without any doubt, the single most extraordinary thing about CSD case plans is their treatment of services...planned for the clients. In every single case, a service which was planned was also provided.... That kind of perfection is startling." pg 7-13
SCF is required to notify parents of pending court proceedings and case reviews. The study found SCF conduct is again at variance:
"Barely 50% of the mothers...were notified of the CRB reviews of their cases..." pg 7-16
Chapter 7 concludes "CSD performance, as indicated by the results of the case reading, exhibits serious difficulties." pg 7-20
Chapter 9 analyzes case review and quality assurance as conducted by Citizen Review Boards (CRBs). CRBs are comprised exclusively of citizen volunteers. By law, cases involving children in foster care must be reviewed by a CRB every six months. To qualify for CRB review, children must be from among the most severely abusive cases. The study finds that even among these cases, great disagreement exists between CRBs and CSD/SCF:
"According to CRB statistics between 1989-1990, local boards [dis]agreed with CSD case plans in [44%] of cases reviewed." pg 9-9
The study points out that CSD/SCF has little accountability to even CRBs:
"If the purpose of accountability is to hold individuals to a given standard, something must happen when the standard is not met. In this arena, all of Oregon's case review measures are limited....their power to hold the agency accountable is limited by the agency's willingness to comply." pg 9-31
Conclusion – Part 2 of the report contains nine goals, outlined in some 63 pages. Details of these recommendations are presented elsewhere on this website. In summary, however, it is instructive to note that the top five recommendations specifically curtail CSD/SCF power. Given the size and thoroughness of the study, one might expect the Oregon legislature would have moved decisively to adopt at least some of these recommendations as law. Astonishingly, the Oregon legislature failed to act at all.
As our family's experience has shown, the agency's only substantial change in the last six years is its name. Consider the following: Our daughter was taken on a first report by a single caseworker that never met us. As far as we were able to determine, no investigation of our children or our family was ever performed. No notice was ever sent to us about any of several court hearings regarding our daughter. No one asked our daughter or us about allergies or medical needs. No one ever asked our daughter if she felt safe with her family, and when she asked to return home, her request was ignored.
We understand genuine child abuse - the kind of persistent mental and physical anguish the agency shows in all its posters - does occur and must be dealt with. However, our experience with SCF tells us it has trouble distinguishing loving discipline that unhappily left a mark, from genuine and persistent abuse. Until some of this study’s recommendations are acted upon, too many hapless families will be mauled by a powerful, secretive, unaccountable SCF.