News

The December 20, 2019 regular meeting of the Marion County Children Services Board has been changed to 11:00 a.m. at the Marion Area Chamber of Commerce, located at 267 W. Center St.

Marion County Children Services Board, an agency that functions to protect abused, neglected and dependent children, has the following position available.

Caseworker needed to provide investigation/intake, case management, case planning and direct intervention services to a caseload of families and children in need of protective services intervention for child abuse, child neglect and dependency. On-Call rotation required. Seeking Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work or related field. Salary commensurate with experience.

Any interested party may call, fax, email, or mail a resume to: Dan Downes, Marion County Children Services Board, 1680 Marion-Waldo Road, Marion, Ohio 43302; Dan.Downes@jfs.ohio.gov Phone (740) 386-0421 FAX (740) 389-3499 (information may be downloaded from our web site at www.marionkids.com). EEOC

QUALIFIED APPLICANTS MUST APPLY NO LATER THAN: Friday, December 20, 2019 @ 4:30 p.m.

MARION – With May recognized as National Foster Care Month, Marion County Commissioners signed a proclamation Thursday morning in a bid to raise awareness for the need for more foster parents in the county.

Though the proclamation is a symbolic gesture, members of Marion County Children Services that attended the event say the need for licensed foster families in the area continues to grow each year.

Bryant Brown, with children services, said there are currently 85 children in the agency’s care and there are only 31 foster families licensed in the county.

He said if a local family is not available to take-in a child under his agency’s care, private companies are tasked with placing that child with other foster families.

Officials with Marion County Children Services said placing those children is not a cheap process. Brown said those placement costs last year were around $2.2 million.

“It takes 100 percent heart to be a foster parent,” he said as 26 people have expressed interest in starting the process to becoming foster parents.

Also at Thursday morning’s proclamation was Jennifer McMurray, who recently became a foster parent for the first time. Along with her husband Corey, they welcomed a 18-month-old girl into their home on March 26.

“It is something we always wanted to do,” Jennifer said. “Our faith played a large role. We are told to take care of the orphan and the widow.”

“It has always been our goal to adopt (through the foster care system),” she added. “But, (the focus of the foster care system) is to have (those children) reunited with their birth parents.”

For those interested in becoming foster parents, information about how to start the process can be found at the state website, fosterandadopt.jfs.ohio.gov.

 

MARION – As National Child Abuse Prevention Month wrapped up Tuesday, those with Marion County Children Services say the number of cases handled by their agency continues to increase each year.

“Last year alone, (statistically) one out of eight children received services from us,” said Bryant Brown, the community education coordinator for children services. “If you take a stand back and think about it, that is a massive number.”

Brown said the number of children that interact with his agency has steadily risen over the past few years. It’s something he doesn’t expect to slow down anytime soon.

In 2018, children services conducted 931 assessments of safety compared to the 844 conducted the previous year. Each one lasts anywhere from 45 to 60 days.

The agency is on par to surpass 1,000 of those assessments by the end of this year, Brown said.

On top of that, the number of families served following that initial safety assessment increased by nearly 100 last year. Custody cases have also gone up. In 2014, the number of children under temporary custody with the agency was 88; last year that number increased to 134, according to Brown.

He said the amount of cases handled by the agency as a whole have continued to increase over the years by an exponential amount as the addiction crisis has worsened.

“(What we are seeing in most of our cases now) is (a parent) didn’t feed their child today because they are actively in an addiction and chose drugs over feeding,” Brown said. “You can say the same for the physical abuse and maltreatment cases that we see as well.”

“It’s infiltrating everything. You having 3 and 4-year-olds that understand things about drugs that I didn’t understand when I was in my 20s,” he added.

Children services officials say as the need for their services go up, so do their annual expenses.

“Imagine taking two more children into your home. I have a family of three and if I took in any more children, bills across the board are going to go up. That is what is going on here,” Brown said.

He said foster care costs for the agency have more than doubled in the last two to three years.

For example, 75 children were under the agency’s custody as of Feb. 1, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. However, 42 children were under the care of 31 foster families licensed through children services at that time.

Brown said in some cases children services has to turn to private agencies that place children with foster families, which is not a cheap process.

Children services is slated to receive around $3.14 million per year starting in 2020, after a tax levy that would bring in additional revenue for the agency was narrowly passed by Marion County voters in November.

“(Additional local money generated from the levy) is going to allow us to operate in the here and now. Before we were operating on 1989 dollars trying to work in 2018,” Brown said.

In the past, the bulk of local funding for Marion County Children services came from a levy that generated around $1.41 million in 2017.

Volunteers planted over 900 pinwheels in front of Marion County Children Services as part of Child Abuse Awareness Month. Each one represents a safety assessment completed by the agency in 2017.

Click here to view photos featured in the Marion Star.