A former caseworker at the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services calls the environment within the state agency toxic. Stacey McPherson left her job as a Rapides foster care worker in July because her supervisors failed to address their repeated complaints. McPherson says workers are uncomfortably confined to their workspaces.
“So we just kind of sit in our office and we do our work, and we just hope to make it through that one day because every day is excruciating,” said Mcpherson
McPherson testified in front of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee and plans to hold future meetings to look at how they can improve the agency. She says her foster kids were her life and gave them precedence over her own children, but didn’t have management’s support.
“We can’t go into an office and talk about the fun things we do with our foster child or how much we care about this child because we risk that whole case being pulled away from us,” said Mcpherson
McPherson says when she would bring her concerns to her supervisors, she would face retaliation.
“Everything going to be your fault. They want you to just go with the flow. They want to say this is what you do, and this is how you do it, and you just do it”, said Mcpherson
McPherson says salary is not the reason why she left and she says five veteran foster care workers have left the Alexandria office in the last five weeks, it was the toxicity of the work environment. The legislative committee plans to hold more meetings to look at how the work environment at DCFS can be fixed.
Comments