Vol. 25, No. 1
November 2019

CPS Intake: A View from the Inside

What is it like to work in CPS intake? To find out, Practice Notes recently asked six individuals--three intake supervisors and three intake workers--from small, medium, and large county child welfare agencies in North Carolina. Here's what we learned.

A Crucial Role
Those we spoke with said they feel the importance of their work deeply. They know the decisions they make profoundly alter people's lives. As one put it, CPS intake is a "doorway that leads to changing a life."

As they respond to people reporting possible child maltreatment, intake workers ask strength-based questions, accurately document the conversation, educate reporters, and use complex decision trees to reach an initial or first-level screening decision. This usually takes 45-60 minutes, though it can take much longer.

An intake supervisor reads the report and first-level screening decision, then talks with the worker to reach a final screening decision. Every report gets this two-level review.

Some counties have staff focused exclusively on CPS intake. In others, intake staff are also responsible for a variety of other things, such as Adult Protective Services intake and community resource referrals.

High Volume Days
Because report volumes are unpredictable, staffing levels are a common concern for CPS intake units. Most of those we spoke with said they wished administrators would mobilize back-up intake staff sooner when report volumes rise.

Too many reports and too few staff can lead to what one intake worker called "no lunch and lucky to visit the restroom" days where calls from reporters get backlogged, lines form in the lobby, and requests for assists from other counties mount. Several of those we spoke to said when reports and intake callbacks pile up, they worry more than usual about the safety of children and families.

One supervisor said her goal always is "to stay in the moment" to ensure each child and family is given full attention and policies and procedures are carefully followed.

Talking to Reporters
Although central to the work, talking to reporters is not always easy. For instance, people sometimes have false impressions of CPS based on what they have seen in the media. Others cannot provide the basic details intake staff need (e.g., full name, physical address, school location) to screen the report. Reporters can be confused or irritated when intake staff ask strengths-based questions.

Those we spoke to said some reporters even believe that, because of the system they work in or their role in the community, intake staff should bypass policy and procedures to automatically screen in their reports, divulge a family's history with CPS, or reveal whether there is a current open assessment on a family.

The people we spoke to know these challenges are part of the job. They said they simply call up their customer service skills, patiently educate callers about the CPS intake process, and continue to ask about strengths and the other information needed to make a quality screening decision.

Friction in the Agency
Some staff we spoke with feel intake is seen as "less than" by others in their agency. Some attributed this to the fact that intake staff often do not carry caseloads; others said it was because often intake staff are paid less. Still others noted that agency leaders rarely express public appreciation for the key role CPS intake plays.

Whatever the cause, many of those we talked to said their peers frequently question screening decisions and response time assignments, and that this can come across as unfair and disrespectful. As one put it, "we use policy, not speculation, not emotions, and not friendship" when making a screening decision. No report is ever screened in with the goal of increasing someone's caseload.

The Bottom Line
CPS intake is tough work, but it's also essential: every other role in child welfare depends on the information intake professionals gather and the decisions they make. CPS intake workers and supervisors deserve our trust and respect for taking on this crucial, demanding job.