Public Management Case Study

Public Management Case Study: Georgia DFCS

Rose Anthony, Katie London and Amanda El-Kadi

The Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) is a state agency
that investigates reports of child abuse, finds foster and adoptive homes for abused
children, issues assistance to low-income families, helps unemployed parents get
back on their feet, and provides several support services to help families in need
(Hines 2018, 37). DFCS is a division of the Department of Human Services and serves
the entire population of Georgia through 159 offices located in each county in
Georgia. The department’s organizational chart is featured in Chart 1 in the Appendix.
Fulfilling one of its duties, the Georgia DFCS investigated 26,339 reports of child
maltreatment in FY 2010 (Reese 2012). The agency’s mission is “We prioritize the
safety of Georgia’s children in the decisions we make and the actions we take. We
partner with families on their path to independence and build stronger communities
with caring, effective, and responsive service” (Crittenden 2017). Georgia DFCS serves
an important role in each of Georgia’s counties and the agency’s success in meeting
its mission affects thousands of Georgians each year.

Georgia’s Division of Family and Child Services (DFCS) oversees a variety of
necessary services for Georgia citizens. The division is split into two departments that
each have a different focus. The Child Welfare unit handles matters of child welfare
while the Office of Family Independence (OFI) handles family services. Key programs
for OFI include Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF),
and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). TANF and SNAP are federal
assistance programs for low-income households. SNAP provides assistance for food
purchases while TANF provides monthly cash assistance for a limited time if
households meet a certain work requirement. Both programs work towards

providing resources to help each household become self-sufficient and phase out of
the program. Key programs for the Child Welfare unit include foster care, adoptions
and Child Protection Services (CPS). As of the fiscal year 2018, more than 1 million
Georgians were served by DFCS with around $25 million spent in basic assistance for
families and around $400 million spent for child welfare services (Hines 2018, 37).
Given the critical services provided by DFCS, the clients served by these programs,
and the proportionate share of the state budget allocated for these services, it is
important for the Division to be managed as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Although management challenges are seen in both departments of the Division, the
more public and systematic problems are seen in the Children Welfare Unit and will
be discussed in this case study.

Currently, DFCS has a bad reputation with the public. This is primarily due to
the nature of the work of the Division and negative press surrounding the Child
Welfare department (Lindstrom 2016). The unit’s main task is to manage child
welfare cases. The Child Welfare department encompasses Child Protective Services
(CPS), adoptions and foster care (Reese 2012). Cases handled well are not given much
notice, while those handled poorly are highly publicized and more often than not,
receive public criticism. Examining a few select cases from the last decade suggests a
pattern of mismanagement in the department’s handling of cases rather than isolated
incidents. For example, in 2009, complaints of abuse towards Bryan Moreno, a
6-year-old from Forsyth County, were reported to DFCS caseworkers (Rawlings
2009). Although threats to Moreno’s safety were noted by the caseworker, Moreno’s
situation was not properly assessed and caseworkers did not take action; Moreno

stayed in his home setting and died on July 16, 2009. This resulted in DFCS shifting
the department’s focus from reducing open cases to identifying cases that were of
immediate safety concerns (Rawlings 2009). A second incident occurred in 2012 when
a communication failure in the department and lack of follow-up by caseworkers led
to the death of Nasir Patrick, a four-year-old boy who killed by his mother’s
boyfriend after DFCS had opened a case on Patrick’s family (Schneider 2012). This
caused the department to review internal communications because the caseworker
assigned to the Patrick family thought the case had been reassigned to another
caseworker who was unaware of the reassignment (Schneider 2012). In 2013, Emani
Moss’s case was brought to the public eye when her horrific death was found to be
possibly preventable if DFCS workers had completed correct follow-up procedures
after they had received multiple claims about abuse in her household. Prior to Moss’s
death, caseworkers used phone interviews to assess the safety of children and assign
priority to in-person follow-ups, depending on the phone safety assessment (Judd
2016). In another case in May of 2014, the DFCS office in Fulton County was partially
blamed for the death of a five-year-old girl named Heaven Woods (Schneider 2014).
The young girl was beaten to death by her caretakers. It was later found that CPS
was called at least nine times to the girl’s home before the fatal incident occurred
(Davis 2016). After Woods’s death, Governor Deal formed the Child Welfare Reform
Council in order to better assess how to train caseworkers to identify children in
unsafe situations. Even though policy changes were made after every untimely
death, the underlying problems of management, budgetary restrictions, and
systematic policy challenges were not addressed. To truly change, DFCS must

address the problems of high caseload for workers and rapid employee turnover for
both caseworkers and upper-level management.

The National Association of Social Workers recommends that an effective child
welfare worker should ideally have a caseload of 12 to 15 children. Under their
recommendations, the largest caseload a caseworker can undertake and still have a
“manageable” scope of work is 18 children (Whitaker 2004). This caseload size was
only achieved by the DFCS in the 2018 fiscal year; however, it should be noted that
this is not the average caseload of a DFCS worker across Georgia (Hines 2018). More
populous counties have a higher average than lesser populated ones. Additionally,
this standard was only met four years after Heaven Woods’s passing and after
multiple attempts at reform. In 2016, it was reported that DFCS spent $3 million to
cover caseload backlog and hired an additional 625 caseworkers (Lindstrom 2016).
However, simply decreasing caseworker workload does not eliminate problems in
DFCS; the agency also experiences a large amount of employee turnover.

To combat this, DFCS has been working on reducing the caseworker turnover
(Miller 2015). In the fiscal year 2017, the department worked to reduce the employee
turnover rate from 32 to 29 percent, a rate much higher than the national average of
18 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor (Crittendon 2017). The department’s
high turnover can be attributed to the high caseload, stagnant pay, and low morale
among DFCS employees (Miller 2015). A constant shuffle of new employees requires a
tremendous amount of time and resources allocated to training new employees;
funding that is inefficiently spent over and over again. High turnover impacts

institutional history—the usefulness of long term, seasoned employees with
experience in detecting often difficult to spot unsafe situations of children.

Retention is not only a problem for employees, but also for management.
Previous governors, Governor Deal included, have simply replaced upper-level
management when the department receives bad press (Klein 2014). Although
changes in personnel may help change the culture and inject new energy into agency
work, the average term for upper-level management in the department is 22 months,
too short to enact policy and effect change. Current strides in DFCS can be partially
attributed to Bobby Cagle who has served a longer term than most upper-level
management in recent years (Appendix 2). In his 42 month term as director, he has
made changes in caseload management and hiring practices.

As discussed in this case study, Georgia DFCS is facing many challenges. It is
important for the department to develop a strategy to address the challenges
mentioned. In order to successfully address these challenges, strategic planning is
needed. Strategic planning allows for an organization to identify what should be
done, how to do it, what results should be expected, and how well the organization is
able to achieve its goals (Willoughby 2019). After an organization has established its
mission and goals, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)
analysis should be conducted. Below is a SWOT analysis conducted for Georgia DFCS.

The internal weaknesses of the organization include problems with retaining
employees, micromanaging from middle management, and budget constraints to the

organization. Georgia DFCS turnover rates as of 2015 were at 35 percent (Miller
2015). This stems from employees being overworked with caseloads that are too
large for one person. The average caseload in Georgia is 19 clients per case manager,
with many case managers experiencing higher caseloads than the average. The Child
Welfare League of America (CWLA) recommends an average caseload of between
12-15 per case manager (Georgia’s Children 2017). In addition, caseworkers are often
micro-managed, with many employees believing they are supervised to a degree
where they cannot get as much work done because their direct supervisors are
constantly checking up on them. This ultimately leads to resentment and a decrease
in work productivity from employees. The last internal weakness found is the budget
constraints for the organization. Although there have been budget increases for
Georgia DFCS in recent years (Butler 2018) the starting salaries of case managers are
extremely low, and there is not much room for advancement in the field.

An external opportunity for the organization is that DFCS has the potential to
grow their networks with nonprofit and non-governmental organizations. With the
lack of staff, contracting out more responsibility to outside organizations could be
beneficial to the organization. Other organizations can provide the resources needed
to assist case managers with their day to day tasks. Another external opportunity for
DFCS is community engagement. By incorporating local CASA (Court Appointed
Special Advocate) volunteers, the case managers can assure the children will have
some stability in their life.
External threats to the organization include an increase in the general
population of children in foster care and a lack of foster families to house children.

With the growing opioid crisis in Georgia, DFCS has seen an increase in children that
need to foster care, but not an increase in the number of foster families willing to
house children. From 2010 to 2017, the number of opioid-involved overdose deaths
increased by 245 percent in Georgia, from 426 to 1043 deaths (Georgia Department of
Public Health 2017). As of February 2019, approximately 13,873 children are in foster
care in Georgia (Demographics of Child in Foster Care 2019). This is compared to the
8,546 children (American Academy of Pediatrics 2019) in Georgia that were placed in
foster care in 2016. Lastly, counties with slower economies and fewer resources are
not able to provide for their foster children as well as wealthier counties are.

Ashley Dykes is a DFCS foster care case manager for Madison, Oglethorpe, and
Elbert County. She currently works in the social services division which focuses on
the services of foster care, adoption, child protective services, and family
preservation. Dykes has held her current position for approximately one and a half
years; her experience gave insight into the daily workings of a caseworker in this
division.

Dykes noted that her caseload was reduced from twenty-two cases to
seventeen cases, which only partially reduced her workload. Her workload is still
quite cumbersome because of a key challenge in the department--retention. Dykes
noted a lack of retention of experienced case managers within her office. Her office
recently had three people put in their two-week notice at the exact same time. From
her observation, she believes that retention drops between the half a year to a year
mark due to caseworker burnout. The loss of employees can significantly increase her

workload, resulting in each case receiving less attention than necessary, especially if a
partially handled case is given to her. In addition to this work stress, Dykes is also
limited financially. Her salary is currently capped around $35,000, a limit she reached
by going through two forms of training; the first was an onboarding process called
KEYS and the other was a focus specialized training called TRACK. When the notion
of increasing the salary to match current conditions was brought up to the new
Director of DFCS, Tom Rawlings, he stated employees had received a 19 percent
increase in their salary a few years ago.

Dykes often feels very micro-managed in her job and says that many of the
caseworkers feel that there is no transparency from their supervisors. There are
times when she could be getting work done but instead has to justify to her manager
why she is completing her work in the manner that she is. Having to justify
everything she does to her supervisor takes up large portions of her day, that she
could use to be more efficient. In addition to this, she believes that managers often
tell certain employees that they can do their work one way, but then not make those
same exceptions for other employees. She would prefer that her office had more
transparency from the department’s management. Dykes believes that Director
Rawlings is trying to promote a “just” culture where employees can try and justify
things they do that go against the rules but he has not been in his position long
enough to truly implement his new vision. Dykes, like many other social workers and
public servants, does not do her job for the money, rather for the justification of
knowing she is helping people all over Georgia.

Because of the significant and life-changing work DFCS does, it is important to
examine how management ideals influence the day-to-day work of the agency. In
social service delivery, the two most common public management strategies are
traditional public administration and new public management (Sandfort 2000, 730).
Traditional public administration is most often used in large public organizations that
are designed to increase efficiency and centralize control. According to Willoughby, in
traditional public administration, employees in public organizations are motivated by
pay and benefits rather than any public service motivation. Public managers are
expected to conduct work efficiently and with little discretion (2019). Utilization of
this type of public management strategy subjects clients to the impulses of individual
government workers increases the likelihood that public employees breach the public
trust, and introduces individual biases in the execution of public programs (Sandfort
2000, 730).

The newer of the two management strategies, new public management, is
based on the belief that public managers are guided by self-interest in
decision-making (Willoughby 2019). As part of the public management reforms,
public organizations around the country have developed new performance
management systems. Within the past three decades, public managers have
switched to performance-based management to improve program decision-making,
the efficiency of service delivery, and accountability (Newcomer 2011, 108). In new
public management, a public organization is less hierarchical and decentralized
compared to that of traditional public administration (Willoughby 2019). Research has
shown that in performance management systems, management commitment is high

and public managers are prepared to keep improving their performance systems for
better applicability. However, some scholars have concluded that a focus on
performance may threaten democracy. These scholars believe the economic factors in
new public management will overshadow the political concepts of public
administration (Willoughby 2019).

A shift from traditional public administration to new public management could
lead to greater success in meeting its mission for DFCS. Public welfare bureaucracies
are often traditional. In these organizations, individual roles are highly specialized,
extensive policy manuals dictate daily tasks, and administrative rules dictate how
clients are processed in local offices (Sandfort 2000, 734). Reinforced in the interview
with Ashley Dykes, DFCS caseworkers often feel micro-managed within their
positions and feel there is very little transparency coming from managers high within
the department. The traditional public administration management system in place at
DFCS could be contributing to the high employee turnover rates. Dykes stated many
caseworkers in her office only remain in their positions for one to two years before
leaving for other agencies. Implementation of a performance-based management
system within DFCS has the potential to alleviate the problems felt by the agency as
well as help management find areas where more resources need to be diverted.

While the research on new public management is not as developed as the
research on traditional public administration (Sandfort 2000, 730), a switch from an
efficiency-based system to a results-based system could help the department achieve
its mission. A results-based system would also allow caseworkers to employ more

entrepreneurial methods in order to achieve goals. Additionally, management
changes could be made to focus on creating a clear and central repository of
performance information that would allow DFCS to better understand resources need
to handle cases, allow management to monitor cases more effectively and would
allow caseworkers a better repository to understand their own cases
(Høybye-Mortensen, 2017). This would eliminate the need for everyday justification
that Dykes found hindered her everyday work.

Another management solution would be leaning into Rawling’s vision by
creating a “just and learning culture” that allows employees to better identify risks in
their job and ways to mitigate them. In order to create such a culture, upper-level
management must employ principles demonstrated in Appendix 2. Although all
principles should be cultivated, the department should heavily focus on the first
principle, focusing on the child’s wellbeing, in addition to focusing on the second
principle, making decisions despite the uncertainty of some information, as well as
the eighth principle, using information sharing in order to better assess risk.
Ingraining these practices into the culture of DFCS would allow caseworkers to make
decisions to quickly access the needs of the children and families that they served in a
semi-structured manner that provides guidance for spotting troublesome behavior.
In conclusion, in order to make systematic changes to improve public trust in
the agency, it is necessary for the department to change its management in handling
cases. The need for services provided by the department will always be present,
therefore the department should be addressing the way it handles information
collection of cases, performance goals, and indicators along with risk management.

Given the nature of the services provided, it is inevitable that errors will occur,
however, these errors should not be created through poor performance and lack of
sufficient oversight in the department. Incidents should be isolated occurrences
rather than a systematic pattern.

Appendix

Chart 1

Georgia Department of Human Services

Chart 2

Terms derived from data collected from LinkedIn, supplemented by AJC article: DFCS
chief: Georgia’s most disposable leader

Chart 3

Georgia Department of Human Services, Internal Powerpoint

Table 1

Eileen Munro’s Principles in Child Services
Principle 1: Children’s Safety and Wellbeing Come First
Principle 2: Decisions Must be Made Even if Uncertainty of Information is Present
Principle 3: Harm and Benefits Should be Balanced
Principle 4: Judgements on Decisions should be made by the quality of the
decision-making process rather than the outcome
Principle 5: Decisions should be Made in Context
Principle 6: Expectations for individuals should be made based on a group of their
peers, not coworkers
Principle 7: Learn from success and failures
Principle 8: Good information sharing leads to good risk assessment.
Principle 9: Encourage and support staff

A summary of principles elaborated in Eileen Munro’s Decision-making under
uncertainty in child protection: Creating a just and learning culture

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