Even in the best of times, child welfare systems are often stressed and underfunded. In Santa Barbara County, we have the finest professionals you will find in Social Services, and they do a job that many of us could never do. It is the unfortunate reality that they often see humanity at its worst, with children in unthinkable situations. Caseworkers are often overworked, with too few social workers for the needs of foster children and their troubled birth families. Juvenile Dependency judges have caseloads of more than 500 children, and although Santa Barbara County is fortunate to have the tremendous resource of dedicated children’s attorneys, they are likewise overloaded with an average of 150 cases each. Last year, California had 83,000 children living in foster care — the largest number of any state in the nation. And in Santa Barbara County, this year we have well over 600 children who are dependents of the court for their protection.
Times are tough enough for a child who has been removed from their family because of parental abuse or neglect. Nearly all children who are removed from parents suffer additional grief and trauma from the separation itself. And foster care is nothing we would wish on any child. But the invisible, stealthy, silent enemy that is COVID-19 has thrown all of this dysfunction into even more chaos.
For the safety of everyone, many child welfare departments are limiting in-person visits to only the most severe cases, just as the potential for child abuse is rising. For social workers, the potential toll is physical as well as emotional. The national shortage of gloves, masks, and safety gear is impacting foster care, as caseworkers worry about visiting homes without any protection. The court’s mandated visits between biological families and children are temporarily stopped because of the pandemic. And shutdowns at family courts are burdening all parties — children and families, judges, court professionals, foster families — and the result will be even longer stays in foster care for children who have already experienced unthinkable adverse life experiences.