Child Welfare works to ensure every child in Oregon grows up in a safe, permanent, and nurturing family home. The COVID-19 pandemic created many challenges for families that can impact child safety, causing Child Welfare to make swift shifts in its practices to continue responding to reports of abuse and neglect 24/7, and maintain support to families and community partners.
Most of the 3,000-person Child Welfare workforce transitioned to teleworking, including most of the Oregon Child Abuse Hotline team. Workers sought creative ways to safely provide in-person visitation for children in foster care and their families, and expanded virtual options for keeping families in touch. After seeing a sharp drop in calls to the hotline when the stay home orders put many mandatory reports out of touch with children, Child Welfare began a public awareness effort and developed tools to help the public and mandatory reporters check-in on children. Hotline calls are now rising.
Lacey Andresen, Child Welfare deputy director of practice and program, sat down with DHS Director Fariborz Pakseresht to discuss how Child Welfare staff, providers and the children and families they serve are handling the pandemic.
Find more information for staff about COVID-19 on the OWL (https://dhsoha.sharepoint.com/teams/Hub-DHSOHA-COVID19/SitePages/DHS-COVID19-Communications.aspx).
Find more information for clients and the public about COVID-19 on the DHS website. (https://www.oregon.gov/DHS/COVID-19/Pages/Home.aspx)
Follow DHS on Twitter @OregonDHS (https://twitter.com/OregonDHS).
Download full script by clicking here (https://sharedsystems.dhsoha.state.or.us/DHSForms/Served/DE COVID-19 EP12.pdf).
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