Child protection workers face danger, criticism
When her colleague was killed, social worker Maggie Van Duyn thought back over six years of entering Vermont homes for the Department for Children and Families.
Until recently, Van Duyn held the same front-line job as Lara Sobel, the child welfare caseworker who was fatally shot Friday.
"One of the reactions when I heard about Lara's death was that I was talking to social workers about, 'I can't stop thinking about all of these people who wanted to kill me,' " she said. "For a lot of people that we work with, that moment passes — that rage, that anger."
Every day on the job is different, Van Duyn said, but one thing is constant: Vermont child welfare caseworkers always face scrutiny and criticism.
DCF faced criticism last year following the deaths of two children whom DCF workers allowed to live with their families despite warning signs. Lawmakers passed a bill this year to address some of the most pressing concerns in those cases.
Sobel, 48, of East Montpelier was killed Friday about a month after the suspect in the shooting, Jody Herring, lost custody of her 9-year-old daughter. Herring has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge. Public records in the murder case are silent on why she lost custody.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the department has faced a new surge of vitriol, particularly online. The governor and other state leaders have risen to defend child protective workers, saying hateful speech exacerbates the risks of the job.
"We've heard it all," Van Duyn said of the criticism of DCF. "You know, a lot of people are under the assumption that we get bonuses when we take away children, and that is ridiculous and hideous."
Now a senior social worker based in Essex Junction, Van Duyn screens reports of child abuse and neglect that come into the 24-hour hotline on nights and weekends. Van Duyn also sends social workers out on emergency calls.
She returned to work Sunday, two days after Sobel's death.
"It's terrifying for us, and I think it's terrifying for our family members," Van Duyn said. "But I also think that because we're social workers, we know we have to keep doing this. If we don't help families, who will?"
Online threats
In online media reports of Sobel's death, readers posted hundreds of comments that blasted the Department for Children and Families for being "corrupt" and that disparaged child welfare caseworkers.
Comments on Burlington Free Press stories ranged from calling child protective service workers "kidnappers" and "Nazis" to praising Sobel and other caseworkers for the difficult jobs they have.
"It's truly disturbing what you read and what you hear," Gov. Peter Shumlin said at a vigil honoring Sobel on Sunday. "It's not OK to say of the people that are on the front lines — dedicating their lives to finding a better solution to some really horrid, horrid circumstances — that the motive of those employees is to be hurtful, to take kids away from parents who should have them."
Child welfare cases result in hundreds of success stories, said Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington District. But failures are the only cases that receive public attention.
Social workers are criticized for removing children from homes, or in the case of the two toddler deaths last year, leaving them with the family.
"They're damned if they do and damned if they don't," said Sears, who said he tries to ignore online comments about the Department for Children and Families.
Sears introduced a bill last year to outlaw "criminal threatening." The bill sparked concerns with the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, he said — but he's considering raising the issue again.
What is causing the negative perception of child protection workers?
Joan Levy Zlotnik, senior consultant for the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Social Workers, said anger over increasing child fatalities due to abuse and neglect and a lack of understanding about the difficulty of child welfare work feed the negative perception.
Zlotnik said many workers have high caseloads and insufficient training to deal with situations presented to them, which could further erode public perception of them.
"It's a very hard job and minimized nationally," Zlotnik said. "The thought is it's something anyone can do."
In many states, including Vermont, child welfare caseworkers are not required to have a degree in social work. Nationally, only 40 percent of child welfare caseworkers have a degree in social work, Zlotnik said. The minimum requirement in Vermont is that caseworkers have a degree in a related field, said George Liebowitz, chairman of the University of Vermont's School of Social Work.
Proper training can mean the difference between life and death of a child, according to research by Katharine Briar-Lawson, a social welfare professor at the University of Albany in New York.
(Sobel had a master's degree in social work and 14 years of experience as a social worker.)
Poverty, drug and alcohol issues and homelessness are making child protection cases more complex, and DCF workers have limited resources, said longtime legislator Rep. Ann Pugh, D-South Burlington.
Pugh taught Sobel in the master's of social work program at UVM.
"We are used to being in a profession that not everyone understands," Pugh said, "because there's no one right answer. If there was one right answer, it would be a whole lot easier."
Studies by the Casey Family Foundation in the wake of the toddler deaths in Vermont found that workers need smaller caseloads and better training, especially regarding the effect of opiate addiction on families.
The average load per caseworker in Vermont is 17.7 families, said DCF Deputy Commissioner Cindy Walcott. Caseloads can range from 15.9 to 21.1 families per worker. There is no cap on the number of cases a worker can take on, and the size of each family is not factored in when divvying up the work, Walcott said.
DCF Commissioner Ken Schatz and Gov. Shumlin encouraged Vermonters to speak up about the positive work of child protection workers.
"The dialogue has digressed to the point where we must all answer it and we can no longer be silent," the governor said. "Hateful speech leads to hateful acts."
'The loss of our innocence'
Sobel's killing changes the dynamic around social work in Vermont, Rep. Pugh said. UVM faculty will discuss how to talk with students about the tragedy.
Similar tragedies have happened elsewhere. Massachusetts child welfare workers gathered Tuesday to honor Lara Sobel. They compared the tragedy to the 1996 killing of Massachusetts social worker Linda Silva, who was shot by a client.
"Many of us thought this would never happen in Vermont — that Vermont was different," Pugh said. "So I think as a community, as a state, not only are we mourning the loss of a life taken much too soon, but I think we have to mourn the loss of our innocence."
Barbara Rachelson, a social worker and executive director of the Lund family services agency in Burlington, said Sobel's slaying has been shocking.
"Our staff are reeling from it," Rachelson said. "People don't necessarily think about the dangers all the time."
Some clients who lose custody of their children temporarily use it as an opportunity to get their lives together, Rachelson said. But "for some women, when they lose their child, they feel like there's nothing else left."
Rachelson, who also serves as a Democratic state legislator for Burlington and sits on the House Judiciary Committee, said she's disturbed by comments that make DCF into an enemy.
"It's a profession that people sort of love to hate," Rachelson said.
Pugh said caseworkers have to walk a difficult tightrope.
"You have people on the one hand who say they break up families, and you have people on the other hand who say they keep kids in the home too much," Pugh said. "On some level, they do the best they can in situations where families are in crisis and are struggling with issues that many of us can't fathom."
Fear and caution
Since the shooting, social worker Maggie Van Duyn said people calling the child abuse hotline have expressed support for DCF workers. She's unsure what will change, or should change, in light of the tragedy.
"We do a good job talking to families, working really hard to make them not feel threatened and work with us," Van Duyn said. "It's impossible to predict how they're going to react. So we do take a lot of safety precautions."
Lara Sobel was one of four people shot to death Friday in Washington County. The authorities say they believe Jody Herring killed three relatives in the nearby town of Berlin before ambushing Sobel in Barre. No charges have been filed connected to the slayings of sisters Regina and Rhonda Herring and their mother, Julie Falzarano.
Law enforcement officers sometimes accompany caseworkers in the field, but Van Duyn said that's not in the best interest of families for every cases.
When removing a child is necessary, child protection staff have support from law enforcement and the courts.
"It's not like we are making these decisions in a silo. We're using our community resources to make sure that we are in fact making the right decision," Van Duyn said. "We ultimately want to be able to reunite families, but we can't do that all the time. That's not safe."
DCF workers have high caseloads and a heap of expectations, Van Duyn said.
"It's an impossible job," she said, adding later, "It's impossible to do everything that we're asked to do perfectly all the time."
Van Duyn said Sobel's death has strengthened her resolve to move forward. She wants Vermonters to know that caseworkers act out of compassion. Removing a child from the home is a dreaded task, Van Duyn said.
"It feels terrible, it is hard, and it can be scary," she said. "We don't want to do that, but we have to sometimes."
This story was first posted online Aug. 12, 2015. Contact April Burbank at 802-660-1863 or aburbank@freepressmedia.com. Contact Paris Achen at 802-660-1874 and pachen@freepressmedia.com.
Father speaks
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – A man who shares a 9-year-old daughter with a woman accused of killing a Vermont social worker said Wednesday he feels bad for the victim's family.
Edward Szczebak spoke to The Associated Press in his first public comments since Department for Children and Families worker Lara Sobel was shot to death Friday as she left a state office building in Barre.
His daughter's mother, Jody Herring, is charged with killing Sobel because she was upset about losing custody of the girl. Herring has pleaded not guilty. Police also believe Herring shot and killed three of her own relatives before killing Sobel, but charges have not been filed in those deaths.
Szczebak said at his home in Springfield, Massachusetts, that he doesn't understand why Sobel was killed.
"It's like a soap opera," he said.
He declined to talk about his family.
— Stephen Singer, Associated Press
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