Those who are seeking employment opportunities should consider checking the many social worker openings that are available in the state of New Hampshire, which currently doesn’t have enough employees to keep up with the increasing demand for these professionals.
Organizations are currently seeking qualified job candidates with their masters in social work from schools like Rutgers, especially as the number of neglect cases and child abuse cases continue to climb.
A Report into Child Abuse Fatalities in New Hampshire
The increasing demand for social workers in New Hampshire has become apparent with the help of a preliminary report by an agency that was hired to look into the child abuse fatalities that occur throughout the state.
The report was created by the Center for the Support of Families, which is an organization that’s based in Silver Spring, Maryland. It has confirmed a lot of what lawmakers already knew over the last 12 months, and that is that the Division of Children, Youth and Families is severely in need of highly qualified staff members. The division sees a very high turnover rate amongst its social workers, and it lets investigations go far beyond the 60-day timeframe that’s required by its policy manual.
More on What the Report Revealed
In addition to the high turnover rate, the lengthy investigations, and the lack of social workers at the Division of Children, Youth and Families, the report also found that just 20% of cases that were reviewed by staff were either moved on to the following phase or closed within 60 days.
The data that revealed this information was from February 2006. Since that time, however, the percentage of completed assessments that were done on time stayed consistent at 15-30%, even though the number of assessments that were being dealt with started spiking in 2012 as more people started suffering with opioid addiction.
To put it in perspective, the assessments that were completed monthly from February 2006 through February 2012 were anywhere from 100-200. In late 2012, however, numbers started climbing dramatically. By 2013, they were in the 800s, and in 2015, there were around 1,000 assessments worked on by the department.
Why Social Workers Are Struggling
The majority of the social workers that were interviewed for the report stated that their workload was the main reason why assessments were often overdue. National standards recommend that there be no more than 12 active cases for each social worker at any time, so those working in New Hampshire obviously carry a far greater load.
Some social workers, in fact, stated that they carried loads of 70 assessments at once, and the average monthly load was 53 cases. This translates to roughly 15 new cases of neglect or abuse monthly, even though there are many that remain unresolved. As a result, high turnover rates are common.
If you’d like to step in and start working as a social worker in NH, you should be able to find work easily, especially if you’ve received your MSW online from a reputable university, and this could be the ideal opportunity for you to make a difference while receiving a great salary and benefits.
