State’s child welfare office in Lewiston hit hard by staffing issues

May 4—After bringing vacancies down to a relative low last year, the Lewiston district of Maine’s child welfare organization is again struggling to retain caseworkers, who are grappling with mandatory overtime hours and short-staffed teams.

Statewide, the Office of Children and Family Services is facing high vacancy rates, partly fueled by burnt-out workers resigning, Director Bobbi Johnson told the Maine Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee during her quarterly update last week.

Of 56 caseworker vacancies statewide, 27 of them are within the Lewiston district, Johnson told lawmakers. In 2024, that figure dipped to 10.

“In Lewiston, we have had success last year in significantly reducing the number of vacancies, and we’ve seen those creep up,” Johnson later said in an interview. “When we have a number of vacancies, that can result in higher workload.”

Beyond higher workloads during regular hours, short-staffing also means more mandatory overtime when children need supervision in emergency shelter settings.

When no other shelter is available, the state temporarily places children in its care in hotel rooms and hospitals, where they need the supervision of at least one caseworker.

Last year, agency staff worked 6,206 shifts — or 24,822 hours — providing that supervision statewide, she told the committee.

“I think Lewiston has been the hardest-hit district with having kids for extended periods of time or multiple kids in hotel settings,” Johnson told lawmakers. “Staff are certainly reporting that having to provide this coverage and this required overtime is having an impact on their ability to continue being in this position.”

Johnson said that while the agency has been able to hire new staff, the key issue has been retaining those already on board.

In addition to caseworker vacancies, Lewiston also makes up a relatively large share of staff vacancies for case aide workers — three of eight statewide — as well as having two of the nine open supervisor positions statewide.

Caseworker jobs are inherently challenging, and it can be difficult to hold on to quality candidates, said Eric Meyer, CEO of the behavioral health center Spurwink Services.

“They’re essentially first responders,” Meyer said. “With the added complexity of working with kids and families where there’s safety questions.”

He said short-staffing is a longstanding issue for Maine’s child welfare agency and peer groups across the country. Maine is also facing funding and budget issues this year, which creates additional uncertainty, he said.

Having to supervise children, sometimes overnight or at odd hours, is taxing for caseworkers and “not exactly what their jobs are either,” Meyer said.

AVENUES FOR IMPROVEMENT

On top of heavy workloads, Johnson noted that the Lewiston district is a relatively large geographic area, which means otherwise strong candidates living in the district may still be far from the office and less likely to apply.

As a remedy, the agency is planning to open a new satellite office in Farmington, for which openings have already been posted, and is considering a similar endeavor in Rumford, Johnson said.

“We’re trying to look at how can we potentially access more candidates that would want to be in these positions that aren’t required to go to the Lewiston office,” she said at the meeting.

One supervisor and two new staff members have been assigned to the Farmington office, leaving two openings to fill, Johnson later told the Press Herald. Those positions are counted among the district’s total vacancies.

Staffing shortfalls have been partially offset by community sitters, vetted members of the public who can supervise children in emergency settings, usually alongside a caseworker, Johnson said.

Johnson called the community sitters program, which began a little over a year ago, “one of our most successful strategies” in the short term. She did not know exactly how many sitters were available to the Lewiston district.

The agency’s roughly 200 sitters currently provide coverage in emergency settings about a third of the time, she said. They are paid $25 an hour, including travel time, plus mileage.

Last year, sitters logged 1,569 shifts, or 6,275 hours of work — significantly less than the nearly 25,000 hours spent by caseworkers.

The Office of Children and Family Services is also working to develop a network of resource homes across the state that can take in high-need children who would otherwise spend the night in a hotel or similar setting, Johnson said.

Earlier this year, DHHS leadership, including Johnson, met with a few active resource families from Down East Maine to discuss what support they could provide to children placed in their communities, she said.

“We brought them all together and talked about the challenges. We really are interested in building and creating solutions with them,” Johnson said. “There was a conversation about, ‘If you can’t be a placement, are there other ways you can support the youth or the resource families that are providing for them?'”

The office is working with resource families in Lewiston to convene a similar meeting, but they have not yet scheduled a date, Johnson said.

FEWER CHILDREN IN CUSTODY

There were 2,277 children in the state’s custody as of Thursday, Johnson said in an interview. That’s nearly 100 fewer than at the beginning of the year and nearly 300 less than last year’s 20-year peak. About 430 of those children were in the Lewiston district, Johnson said.

“They’ve been focused on helping children to safely exit DHHS custody, and so that’s been one of their efforts that they’ve been successful in,” Johnson said of the staff in Lewiston.

That progress comes as the agency works to develop structural and policy changes following years of criticism by outside advocates — and its own staff — as well as heightened scrutiny by the Legislature last session. Johnson emphasized that she wants to hear from staff about the particular issues they face and their suggestions for improvements moving forward.

“I’m deeply appreciative of the team that we have there (in Lewiston), and I also recognize the positive impacts that they have on families each and every day,” Johnson said. “That recognition is not always present for them.”

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