Counseling for Stark Children Services staff helps as agency addresses staff shortage

CANTON − Laura Schoeppner became a social worker to help people.

"Children was where my heart lied," she said. "[In this job] we're able to serve and protect the most vulnerable population in the county."

But the job also comes with its challenges. Schoeppner, who recently moved into a temporary supervising role, said there are many stresses on the system.

County commissioners recently voted to continue providing a counseling service for the Stark County Division of Children Services to help the agency's staff deal with job stress. The board approved the cost, up to $25,000, last month.

Shortages of community resources and long waiting lists for things like housing and mental health services can make it difficult to help families in crisis.

"It's frustrating when you know that the service should be there and could be extremely helpful, it's just not available," Schoeppner said.

Additionally, the Division of Children Services continues to struggle with employee retention and hiring. They are short-staffed as a result.

Tricia Mayle, deputy director of the Division of Children Services, said the impact of difficult cases is part of the reason why.

"It's not the easiest job," she said. "It takes a toll on people emotionally."

The staff counselor can "help process with staff, talk through things, give them feedback or tips on what they are experiencing," Mayle said. "Whatever their needs are."

The counseling program is through Helix Counseling in Louisville. Counselor Paxton Hodous comes into the office about four hours once a week for drop-in appointments with staff.

"People can just stop in and see her, or they can schedule with her ahead of time," Mayle said. "It's not an extra thing that you have to do outside the work schedule. The convenience of it has been really well received."

Schoeppner has not personally utilized the staff counseling, but she said it is extremely important to have support and someone to talk through cases. She relies on her family at home for support.

"With a demanding job, and if life is crazy at home, sometimes we don't have the time to be able to do that in our free time," she said. "Having it available here at work, it makes a huge difference."

Schoeppner said she knows several employees that have taken advantage of the program.

Stark Children Services started in-office counseling last year

Children Services was awarded a retention grant from the Public Children Services Association of Ohio to start the program last year .

The grant was offered by the association to help improve employee retention and hiring for children services agencies in Ohio. A total of $15 million was distributed to Ohio counties for various programs.

Scott Britton, assistant director of the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, said the grant money helped support staff around the state.

"We see a lot of secondary traumatic stress in our caseworkers," he said. "Counties were able to use that money flexibly to provide a number of benefits to their frontline staff."

Britton said some counties used the money for retention incentives such as employee bonuses and sign-on incentives, while others used it for security measures or work-culture initiatives.

He said the Stark County counseling program is one way to support staff and have better outcomes for families.

"Counseling supports are crucial," Britton said. "We know that when workers feel supported and when they feel safe, they're more likely to stay. Every time a worker leaves their case, a child's chances of attaining permanency for reunification decreases, so we know it has a direct impact on outcomes for children and families."

Employee retention remains a problem in Ohio

The counseling program has been successful in providing staff support, but the agency still struggles with retention and hiring.

There are 167 employees currently working in the Stark County Children Services Division. The agency has openings for six social workers and one administrative assistant. Mayle said they would ideally need 186 staff to best handle the current caseload.

"It's not by any means unique to us or our agency; it is across the board," Mayle said. "We are still experiencing a staff shortage and the work has certainly not slowed down at all."

In 2023, 31 Ohio counties experienced children services employee turnover between 20% and 40% and 16 counties experienced turnover between 40% and 100%. Five counties experienced turnover of 100% or more, meaning they brought in workers, those workers turned over and more were brought in as a result, Britton said.

He said there are a number of reasons why employee retention is low.

"The No. 1 reason for frontline staff leaving is stress and workload," he said. "Close behind that is low pay. Even though we require caseworkers to have a bachelor's degree and they receive significant training on the job and we send them out to stressful situations, they are still underpaid sometimes relative to other county workers."

He said employee turnover is still a concern but has returned to pre-pandemic levels across the state. In 2019, turnover across the state reached a high of 45%, last year it recovered to 26%.

"I think the workforce grant and the initiatives that were supported by that were certainly a big part of how those numbers started coming down," Britton said.

Mayle said the agency hopes to continue trying new programs and initiatives to help give support.

"We continue to look for opportunities like that to support our staff," she said. "We try to listen to what they're telling us their needs are."

Reach Grace at 330-580-8364 or gspringer@gannett.com. Follow her on X @GraceSpringer16.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Counseling for Stark Children Services staff helps as agency addresses staff shortage