Dear Friends:
For well over a century, Summit County Children Services has improved the lives of abused and neglected children and their families by promoting child safety, permanency and well-being. Simply put, this long-standing commitment to our community is perhaps summed up best by our agency’s defining phrase: “Building Families . . . Building Futures.”
Many exciting things are going on these days at Summit County Children Services, but through it all, we know we must continue to meet the many challenges facing us as an agency in order to continue to provide the quality direct service work our caseworkers deliver to the families we serve. In fact, 'Meeting Challenges' was the theme of our 2010 Annual Report, and the theme of the letter (below) which I co-authored with our Board of Trustees Chair, Dan Bell.
Thank you for your continued interest in Summit County Children Services and the children and families of Summit County.
John Saros
Executive Director
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Meeting Challenges
Success for individuals is often measured by how they meet the difficult challenges that confront them. As a public child welfare agency, success for Summit County Children Services is measured by how we meet the challenges that face us as we carry out our important mission to serve and protect abused, neglected and dependent children and their families.
In this 2010 Report to the Community, aptly entitled ‘Meeting Challenges,’ we share with you examples of how our dedicated staff is working diligently to help individuals overcome the various challenges that life has placed before them -- including serious physical challenges, frustrating family challenges, and the imposing challenges of pending adulthood.
But beyond the challenges faced by so many of those we serve, our agency has and will continue to face its own challenges as we continue our efforts to help those unable to help themselves. Like many of our sister agencies in Ohio, we have and will continue to bear the weight of appreciable funding decreases and related uncertainty at the state and local levels. To deal with the reality of continued funding decreases, we took some very aggressive steps last year to maintain the quality of our services without any interruption in those services. We are pleased to report that such efforts, while difficult, are yielding positive results in 2011.
Among the steps taken in 2010 was a Social Services Reorganization, which reduced costs (by decreasing the number of children in expensive paid placement programs) and continued to strengthen our intake and protective service functions by holding caseloads down to a monthly average of about 11 cases/social worker. That caseload figure is among the lowest in the state and allows our social workers to focus their efforts on ensuring that our children are being properly cared for and protected. We achieved significant cost savings by decreasing the size of our staff (by way of layoffs, resignations, retirements and an early retirement incentive plan). Further, we privatized what previously had been our family visitation services, and partnered with health care service providers, such as Akron Children’s Hospital, allowing them to bring their considerable expertise to bear in providing medical and dental care to our children.
In addition to our financial focus, in 2010 we took some major steps forward in providing innovative community services including: the Alternative Response Service Model; Youth Emancipation Task Force; Fatherhood Initiative; Cultural Diversity Initiative; Multi-Dimensional Treatment Foster Care; Permanency Task Force; Expanded Transitional Services for Emancipated Youth; and the Summit for Kids Event. Each of these projects has an important place in the spectrum of services that we provide to the community.
As is reflected above, we effectively met 2010’s challenges. But, we know that we cannot rest on our laurels as we face the new (and presumably bigger) challenges coming our way in 2011 and beyond. Albert Einstein once said, “You never fail until you stop trying.” As we move forward, in 2011 and beyond, we will be guided by that simple idea and remain focused on ensuring that regardless of our challenges, we do what it takes to serve and protect Summit County’s abused, neglected, and dependent children and their families.
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NOTE: TO VIEW A FULL COPY OF THE 2010 SCCS ANNUAL REPORT, GO TO THE 'NEWS CENTER' AND CLICK ON 'PUBLICATIONS'