PHOENIX (Monday, March 14, 2016) – The Arizona Department of Child Safety continues to show significant productivity gains with the backlog of inactive cases continuing to drop, and wait times for family services showing tremendous improvement. As a result, DCS caseworkers are being freed up to focus more time on the children and families in need.
In February of 2015, the backlog was more than 16,000. As of February, there were a little over 11,000 and decreasing rapidly.
The significance is that cases are made up of reports, and since October of 2015, DCS has been closing an average of 1,500 more reports per month than new reports that come in to DCS. This means that Arizona’s children and families are getting the support they need, the families/children are stabilized, and then DCS continues to move forward to focus on the incoming needs at hand.
Because of increased efficiencies, DCS has also made substantial progress in reducing the time it takes to get badly-needed services to families. Since July of 2015, the number of families waiting to get service has dropped by more than 77%. As a result, children and families are getting the help they need much quicker and crises are being averted.
DCS Director Greg McKay said, “From the smallest to the largest of tasks, DCS will ensure we are always at our best, because our best is always needed. Children, families and our entire community deserve nothing less.”
