It appears the staffing levels for Chautauqua County’s Child Protective Services are improving.

For several months CPS workers, mostly from the Jamestown office, have been attending Chautauqua County Legislature meetings, voicing various complaints including staffing levels, hours permitted to work and caseload management.

There had been a proposal to form a special committee to address these concerns, however the legislature instead decided to have its Human Services Committee oversee department issues.

Carmelo Hernandez, county social services commissioner, sent a letter to Human Services Committee members regarding the department.

“As of right now, we have zero CPS workers with over 15 open investigations. I’m trying to find out the last time that happened but it has likely been years since all staff were in the recommended caseload range,” he wrote.

Hernandez did not attend the recent Human Services Committee meeting, but Laurie Dolce, director of certification for the Department of Social Services responsible for child protection, was there.

She said the state recommends CPS workers have no more than 15 cases, which the county is at.

“I am cautiously optimistic that we will be able to stay there for a while,” she said.

Dolce said there are three supervisors doing the work of four people right now, because one of the supervisors is out on leave.

“Those three have done an absolutely phenomenal job with being able to work with their staff to get cases under control,” she said.

Dolce said the department has hired four new employees and another person who will begin working shortly.

“CPS currently has one vacancy. I can’t remember the last time our vacancy was so low,” she said.

In 2019, Dolce said a support group initially called “Chautauqua Strong” was created by some of the staff who were working on their Masters in Social Work. The group’s purpose was to provide ongoing support from a peer perspective.

“They do meetings, they’ve done monthly events. The event may be nothing more than we’re going to take 15 minutes and get people together and anyone who wants to do yoga can do yoga. Anyone who wants to come in and listen to music can come and listen to music,” she said.

Dolce said there is some administrative assistance, but it’s mainly staff driven.

“I can say that I’ve been in this division for almost 17 years. We have more staff supports in place now than we ever had in the time that I’ve worked here,” she said.

Dolce said they’re going to be bringing in staff and supervisor trainers to help address issues including secondary trauma and crisis management.

“Unfortunately, we can’t negate the horrible things that the staff are going to see. The nature of this job is that we are called when bad things happen,” she said.

Legislator Susan Parker, D-Fredonia, said she has requested from Hernandez a written plan and protocol for backup for an instance where law enforcement is not available. Dolce said if there’s an emergency, police send help. If a CPS worker is requesting an officer to serve as a “peace officer” and be present when entering a home, occasionally police have requested to delay a visit due a pending emergency.

“We’ve never had a situation where law enforcement has told us ‘you’re on your own,'” she said.

Parker said she was aware of two complaints by a CPS worker who didn’t get police assistance. She said she would talk to Dolce privately about the specifics of those two concerns. In general, Dolce said she doesn’t think a written plan is necessary.

“Before a worker goes into a dangerous situation, or a potentially dangerous situation, they are always to consult with their supervisor,” she said, later adding “I think that is in a lot of ways our protocol and procedures.”

In a separate matter, Parker said she sent a letter to Hernandez regarding communication within the department.

Dolce said since she was not the main recipient of that letter or discussion, she recommended having Hernandez or someone else address the issue.

Legislator Marty Proctor, R-Mina, who is the Human Services chairman, said he would be willing to invite Hernandez to attend a future meeting to address those concerns.