Rural child welfare divisions often struggle to maintain and retain staff and an article in the Colorado Sun demonstrates an unfortunate pattern of this in western Colorado. According to the article, Moffat County had 10 people quit between March and November 2019, which was 40% of staff, not including the loss of the previous director and child welfare supervisor. The county fell behind and by fall of 2019 they had about 100 overdue assessments of abuse and neglect cases spanning more than a year. The state sent help to provide enough support to clear the backlog and it unveiled a major issue. It found 36 assessments had no documentation and a full investigation took place. A team of 15 caseworkers reviewed 250 files and identified about 80 cases that they had to be redone. In several cases the senior child protection worker appeared to have fabricated such details as checking on kids and interviewing parents. Luckily no children were found to have been injured or killed because of the flagrant work. There are still major questions lingering, including how does the state help rural counties and how can system flaws be found quicker.
