The state is struggling to hire and retain public employees, but the labor problems are particularly troubling at the R.I. Department of Children Youth and Families, government officials say.
The agency has seen 116 employees leave since January 2022, 66 of whom resigned, according to DCYF data. And finding replacements has proved difficult.
Overall, the current DCYF employee attrition rate for 2022 stood at 18%, DCYF says. The rate was much worse within the juvenile justice program and child protective investigators, which stood at 31% and 43% for 2022, respectively.
As of March, there are 66 vacancies out of 702 full-time employees authorized in the fiscal 2023 budget. In his fiscal 2024 proposal, Gov. Daniel J. McKee has proposed a $342 million DCYF budget, with $218.4 million from general revenues, an 11.8% increase over fiscal 2023. This will include funding for eight new full-time positions.
Typically, recruiting employees for the state’s child welfare agency can be difficult. The department deals with the abuse and neglect of young people in trauma, their removal from families and placement in third-party services, or even their incarceration at the R.I. Training School, the state’s juvenile correctional institution which the agency operates.
But in a tight labor market, it’s made even more difficult.
“We have to think out of the box and think of some different strategies to address this,” DCYF Acting Director Kevin Aucoin told the House Finance Committee during a hearing on March 7.
Aucoin himself has been running the agency in an “acting” capacity since 2019. He told the committee that even getting potential employees to show up for civil services exams has been tough.
“We're not getting 100 people showing up anymore, “he said. “If we get 20 people to sit for an exam, that’s a good day.”
For example, since 2019, there have been eight exam sessions administered for social caseworkers. Of the 352 people who passed the exam, only 10 are on the hiring list. Of the 223 people who sat through the three exams administered since 2019 for child protective investigator, there are none on the hiring list, according to a DCYF report submitted to the committee.
Aucoin said DCYF is open to any suggestions to shore up staffing numbers. It’s reached the point where “no idea is a bad idea,” he said.
One idea that’s in the works: instituting a paid internship program for seniors and graduate students at Rhode Island College’s School of Social Work, allowing them to take the examination before graduation and begin work immediately after graduation if they sign a two-year commitment.
“We are actively engaged in these discussions,” Aucoin said.
Katelyn Medeiros, who is leading the R.I. Office of the Child Advocate, said in a letter to the House Finance Committee that in addition to DCYF staffing issues, there has also been a significant shortage at community provider agencies. Those organizations “are stretched so thin that they are working longer hours and carrying higher caseloads which can lead to burnout among staff and further contributing to the workforce crisis,” she said.
The labor gap has resulted in lengthy waitlists for services, with “youth languishing in hospitals and residential facilities due to the limited availability of placements or sent out of state to receive services,” Medeiros said. As many as 63 children under DCYF care are currently placed in out-of-state facilities, some as far as Florida and Tennessee.
Medeiros said that as of March 3, there were 38 children in “hospital settings” awaiting placement, some for more than a year.
“This violates the legal standard for placing children in the least restrictive placement and hinders the child’s access to an appropriate education and limits their interactions in the community,” she said.
Senate Finance Committee Chairmen Sen. Louis P. DiPalma, D-Middletown, said changes in workforce trends have had a devastating impact on DCYF. The state needs to get serious about connecting recruitment to compensation, he said.
“One of the major issues there is wages. Are they getting paid enough to do that job?” he asked.
Given inflation and the state’s low unemployment rate, the agency has found itself competing with industries with much less stressful job descriptions, DiPalma said.
“The chickens are coming home to roost.”
Update: The fourth paragraph updates the number of job vacancies in the R.I. Department of Children, Youth and Families as of March.
Christopher Allen is a PBN staff writer. You may contact him at Allen@PBN.com 
What is on the test?
How can this be? There are only two vacancies on the state job board for the Dept. of Children, Youth and Families.