by Lucas Thomae
From monitoring suspected child abuse and neglect cases to accounting for children in foster care to taking on additional emergency responsibilities and maintaining essential services amid power and communication outages, county Department of Social Services offices faced major disruptions as a result of Tropical Storm Helene in Western North Carolina.
Damage to roads has created ongoing challenges for mandatory home visits for child protective services and foster care oversight, as well as inspections of long-term care facilities for adults.
“Many county DSS offices had lost power, internet and cell services and were impacted by numerous road closures due to the flooding, impacting the ability to initially contact foster parents and conduct child welfare services,” NC Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Kelly Haight Connor told Carolina Public Press.
“NCDHHS-Division of Social Services was in contact with all 27 counties as quickly as possible after the storm to help assess needs and determine the ability of the impacted counties to perform child welfare services. All 27 counties were able to operate child welfare services, some via communication through their local law enforcement or Emergency Operation Center, until such time as their communication network was operational.”
Of about 12,000 children in foster care in North Carolina, a quarter of them were in the custody of the 27 disaster-area counties when Helene battered the state in late September.
As of Friday, all 3,096 children in the custody of the disaster-area counties are accounted for as safe, Connor said in an email. An additional 261 children in the custody of counties outside the disaster declaration were living in the disaster area when Helene hit, and they too have been accounted for.
Now comes the hard work of ensuring that those children and others relying on local DSS agencies receive adequate services amid a lengthy recovery process in Western North Carolina. Executive orders and a hurricane relief package have offered some support, but DSS’ daily responsibilities continue to be challenged by the sheer devastation to communication and transportation infrastructure.
Local DSS works to get back on track
In addition to child protective services and providing for child welfare, local DSS agencies also operate programs involving Medicaid, food and housing assistance, child care subsidies, services for seniors and disabled adults, and job search assistance. During times of emergency, local DSS is also tasked with coordinating the opening of emergency shelters and operating the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Rutherford County DSS Director Dee Hunt told CPP that she had to get used to wearing many hats in the immediate aftermath of the storm. In addition to figuring out how to conduct their normal duties, Hunt’s team members oversaw Rutherford’s emergency shelter for five days before The Red Cross took over.
“I had employees who lost power, lost food, had (downed) trees so they couldn’t get out,” Hunt said. “So they’re coming to work, and then they’re having to work the shelter and also the D-SNAP program, and then go home and try to still continue to get the debris out of their yards. So it’s been emotionally tough on all of us.”
Hunt told CPP that of the children living in any of the 24 foster homes in Rutherford County, two were temporarily displaced and had to stay in hotels after the storm. Hunt added that there were fewer issues with their adult care homes. Some lost power but were able to operate on generators until it was restored.
Haywood County DSS told CPP that they were back to normal operations with support from the sheriff’s office. Many of Avery County’s government buildings in Newland suffered significant flooding damage, and its DSS office is temporarily located in the lower level of its public library.
According to the statewide numbers from DHHS, 67 children were originally reported as displaced from the storm, and 13 children in foster care remain in temporary housing with their placement providers as of Friday, Nov. 8. There are 224 children placed in 29 licensed group homes in the disaster area, and all are accounted for and safe.
Furthermore, DHHS told CPP that there were 2,418 adult individuals under guardianship residing in the affected counties, all of whom have been accounted for and are safe. There are 236 licensed assisted living facilities – 127 adult care homes and 109 family care homes – located in the disaster-area counties.
According to the DHHS’ Division of Health Service Regulation-Adult Care Licensure Section, 19 of those facilities (8 adult care homes and 11 family care homes) evacuated their residents. Half have been able to return to their original facilities, while the residents from the other assisted living facilities were admitted to new facilities.
State offers relief, but roads still a challenge
On October 24, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a $600 million hurricane relief package that directed $71.4 million to DHHS. Part of that money was specifically allocated to County DSS offices to provide individuals with rental assistance. Qualifying households will receive a one-time payment equal to the fair market rent of a two-bedroom unit.
Additionally, the NC General Assembly has allocated $1.4 million to county departments of social services to support vulnerable adults impacted by Hurricane Helene, and another $4 million which went toward assisting children and families who have been impacted by the disaster.
Before that, Gov. Roy Cooper issued an executive order on Oct. 17 that waived enforcement of some regulatory and licensing requirements for foster families in the disaster area through the end of the year. That order will permit temporary living arrangements for foster families without imposing licensure regulations through Jan. 1 and allow supervising agencies to conduct virtual visits rather than in-home visits as necessary through the end of November.
Virtual visits are still necessary for some hard-to-reach homes in the North Carolina mountains, but the executive order does not include social workers in child protective services cases. As of Monday, the North Carolina Department of Transportation is reporting 293 road closures as a result of Helene.
That challenge was felt acutely in McDowell County, where DSS Director Bobbie Sigmon said the county’s social workers struggled to check in with individuals in need of services.
That included children and adults under the guardianship of the county, as well as families involved in abuse, neglect or dependency cases. The latter requires in-person visits from a social worker to draft up a safety plan for the child, typically involving ongoing monitoring.
Sigmon said some families whose driveways were washed away in the storm cleared out entirely new pathways into their properties.
“A lot of these families have made new routes into their homes that weren’ t there before, so we have that,” Sigmon said. “Some other families may not be staying at their home day in and day out. Maybe they’re staying with friends or relatives or different things, so we’re seeing them in a different home than they normally would stay in.”
Sometimes, social workers from neighboring counties have had to check on McDowell residents when their homes aren’t accessible, as is the case from one adult individual who lost his home to a landslide during the storm and is temporarily staying in a hotel in Little Switzerland.
After Sigmon’s staff worked around the clock to make contact with all children and adults under the care or supervision of the county, she said, they managed to secure housing for all who had been displaced and needed help finding a place to stay.
“I’m super proud of my staff for going with the flow on this, because no one expected a hurricane of this magnitude to hit the mountains of North Carolina.”
This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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