Child-welfare workers in the Midlands bear some of the highest caseloads in the state – with one Lexington County worker managing 48 cases and 103 children at one time.
The Midlands caseworkers are not alone, according to a review by The State of May 21 caseloads for every S.C. child-welfare caseworker.
About 40 percent of child-welfare workers across South Carolina – including two-thirds of the workers in Kershaw County, more in half in Lexington and 43 percent in Richland County – try to handle more than the 17 cases at any one time that national experts recommend.
That work load is far higher than the one portrayed to a state Senate panel investigating the state Department of Social Services earlier this year.
The agency’s then-director, Lillian Koller, told a state Senate panel that Social Services caseworkers manage, on average, six to seven cases. Koller later acknowledged that average — while accurate — was misleading, including some staffers who only manage one case at a time.
Questions about those caseloads are driving an ongoing investigation into Social Services by a state Senate panel. Child-welfare advocates charge the agency has missed cases of abuse and neglect that led to children dying.
Those concerns are justified, according to Social Services’ own internal evaluations of child-welfare services in South Carolina’s 46 counties.
The State reviewed those evaluations and found that in 25 of 46 counties – including Lexington and Richland – investigations of alleged child abuse were more likely than not to be closed in violation of the agency’s own policies.