Though the case has faded from the headlines, it has been only a little more than three months since 16 children were removed from the Siders’ home in Hamden. While that case makes its way through the system, Job and Family Services workers are sounding the alarm that part of that system is significantly broken.
“I have been a county director since 1999, yet I have not seen such a challenging time in the child welfare system as I do today,” Jody Walker, head of South Central Ohio Job and Family Services, told lawmakers, according to a report in The Guardian, “specifically in terms of the needs of our children.”
He was talking to lawmakers a year BEFORE the discovery of the children in Vinton County. Now things are even worse.
“Our biggest challenge is a persistent crisis in identifying appropriate, affordable and accessible placements … Paid placement costs have increased 41% since 2020, far outpacing inflation, with the cost for residential and group home care skyrocketing by more than 65%,” Angela Sausser of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, told The Guardian. “While the state share [of spending on children services] has been rising over the last eight years, from 10% to 20%, it still falls below the national average of 42%.”
In rural, sparsely populated counties (like Vinton) where property tax levies fail to fill in the gaps to cover the cost of caring for at-risk children, the problem is two-fold. There is not enough money, and there are not enough Job and Family Services workers to properly investigate and monitor suspected cases of child abuse and neglect. (In fact, the children in the Siders case were discovered because warrants were served on Gary Siders II and Elizabeth Siders on charges that had nothing to do with the neglect of their children).
West Virginians will recognize struggles similar to what the state’s Bureau for Social Services, and the children for which it is responsible endure. In fact, the Siders family first came to the attention of authorities in West Virginia before they slipped into Gallia and then Vinton counties in Ohio.
“I believe the school made contact with the appropriate school district where the family was living in West Virginia. However, before authorities could take action, the family moved again,” a representative of Gallia juvenile court told The Guardian.
One wonders what the outcome might have been for that family, had officials in West Virginia had the resources to move more quickly; or those in Ohio been better equipped to identify suspected abuse and neglect and take action.
But this isn’t about just one family or one county. All over Ohio, counties are struggling with a collapsing system and lack of support — both financial and otherwise.
Once lawmakers get off the campaign trail — on which they no doubt spent plenty of time talking about the importance of supporting Ohio’s children and families — they’ll have to put their votes where their mouths were and come up with real ways to reform and properly fund the system.
Too many Buckeye State children cannot afford for them to get it wrong.
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