Governor: Shorthanded Family Dept. in dire need of social workers

“Recruiting social workers is essential,” Gov. Jenniffer González Colón said during a visit to the Family Department earlier this week. (Facebook via Jenniffer González Colón)

By The Star Staff

Gov. Jenniffer González Colón made a public call this week for social workers in the Family Department and acknowledged that the staffing situation has become chaotic.

“Recruiting social workers is essential,” the governor said Monday at a press conference at the agency, where she announced the introduction of new technology to be used to improve adoption processes. “There is no law that is valid. We need to increase the number of social workers, because they are the ones who are going to do the investigations of the cases of abuse, the adjudications in the cases that occur and the recommendations on how we are going to work with these minors. And in the cases of the elderly as well.”

“So the fact that the Family Department needs 350 social workers is no small thing, so that we are making a public call for the recruitment of 350 social workers here, because that is the chaos that the Family Department has right now in the care of [victims of] child and elderly abuse,” she added. “And I am saying it here.”

González Colón went on to note that “as governor, when we held the first meeting of the Welfare Council, I asked why we have so many cases of abuse that are not being attended to, so many cases of referrals for child abuse that are not being attended to, and it is because we do not have enough social workers.”

“Obviously, we have to recruit them, and when we look for them, there are open calls for applications that have not been filled since last year,” she said. “So that is why today I am calling on all social workers; we do not know how long the call for applications will take to be filled -- I did not know that those calls for applications were open.”

Family Secretary Suzanne Roig Fuertes said the agency is working with the Social Workers Association and universities to use the agency as a practice center, and to develop a recruitment plan for the agency.

“This week, if I’m not mistaken, we have a meeting planned with the entire chain, all the social work schools from the various universities and campuses in Puerto Rico that will be visiting us,” Roig said. “The department is open to being a practice center, some already use it, others maybe not, so we are providing that opening so that these next colleagues can conduct their professional practices here in the department, and in the same way this can make them see the virtues of working in the practice of social work in the Family Department.”

Interested applicants must have a social worker’s license and a driver’s license. The salary can reach $3,420 per month. Job openings can be viewed at www.empleos.pr.gov.