High Turnover and Fragmented Focus Plague Foster Care

High Turnover and Fragmented Focus Plague Foster Care

Of the 38 children emancipated from foster care last year throughout Santa Barbara County, 12 wound up homeless within six months. Given the dangerously disjointed state of the county’s Child Welfare Service Department — as described by the Santa Barbara Grand Jury in a recent report — it’s a wonder that number isn’t higher. While praising the dedication of many Child Welfare Service employees, the Grand Jury found a department plagued by an astonishing rate of turnover that’s worsened every year for the past five years. In fact, the Grand Jury found that the average Child Welfare worker stays on the job less than two years. Given that each worker spends the first three months in training, the Grand Jury concluded, “The system is highly inefficient.” Making matters worse, this turnover comes at a time when foster care caseloads have increased by 81 percent over the past five years without any corresponding increase in foster care workers.