Tense Times For Agency Under Siege Memo To Child Welfare Workers Causes Fear They Are Being Blamed For Department’stroubles
The state agency charged with protecting children is under so much political gunfire the director sent a memo to workers warning them not to mess up.
Last month’s fax from Jean Soliz, state Department of Health and Human Services secretary, asked child welfare workers to sign an oath that they will follow agency rules.
It also warned workers that state police will interview them to make sure they are doing their jobs right.
Workers were alarmed.
The Washington Federation of State Employees immediately accused Soliz of scapegoating her employees and demanded she retract the Nov. 13 memo.
Two days later, Soliz complied with a new memo.
“There was sort of a panic,” said Tom Watson, business manager of the union that represents Spokane social workers.
Watson said the secretary’s frustration with Olympia scandals “shouldn’t have been vented toward the employees.”
The memos were sent as Soliz and the state’s largest bureaucracy continue to reel from the sexual-abuse scandal at the state-contracted OK Boys Ranch in Olympia.
Soliz also is under siege from lawmakers bent on dismantling or reorganizing her beleaguered agency.
Her first memo told workers that they must take personal responsibility for being sure they aren’t placing children in danger. “The ‘it’s the system’ defense isn’t likely to work anymore.”
She also noted, “The Governor has asked the Washington State Patrol to complete an administrative review and they will be interviewing you to determine if you are following all licensing and reporting procedures.”
Two days later, Soliz sent out a never-mind memo. “Please disregard the memorandum I sent you on November 13,” she wrote. “I misunderstood instructions from the Governor.” Employees were not asked to sign anything.
Kathy Spears, Soliz’s spokeswoman, called the memo flap a misunderstanding. “People read into it more than what it was supposed to be,” she said, noting the first memo should only have gone to workers directly involved in the OK Boys Ranch debacle.
State Attorney General Christine Gregoire publicly scolded the agency during this same time frame, announcing that 20 agency employees knew of the sexual abuse and beatings at the ranch and “failed to react to terrible problems.”
Spears said Soliz is trying to protect her employees, not frighten them. “One of the things we’re trying to do is take the burden off the individual caseworker and give them more support.”
Roy Harrington, administrator for Eastern Washington’s Children and Family Services, tried to clear up the confusion with his own memo.
He told workers that Soliz’s general message should be heeded: Be sure you know the agency’s rules and be accountable for your decisions.
“These are difficult times in the child welfare business,” he wrote. “And they are likely to get tougher. The public’s elected representatives are increasingly (critical of us) as ‘anti-government’ fires are fanned.”
State Rep. Val Stevens, R-Arlington, is leading a posse of lawmakers who want to change the way the agency does business.
As chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Child Protective Services investigations, Stevens held five forums across the state this fall to hear allegations that the agency runs overzealous and incompetent child-abuse investigations.
Stevens laughed when she heard the details of Soliz’s memos.
“It is not surprising to me that she didn’t carefully investigate or consider what she was doing,” Stevens said. “She doesn’t always think things through.”
Soliz has announced her resignation at the end of this year. The agency’s reins will be handed to Lyle Quasim, who was fired as the agency’s mental health director in 1987. His superiors claimed he was rigid and failed to get along with others.
, DataTimes