The DCFS Wateridge office serves a large population, but the County has not provided adequate staffing or sufficient work space for the social workers, social work supervisors and support staff.
“ 
We are squeezed into a space that is too small to accommodate the people required to be in the building and we don’t even have enough workers for the cases we work,” said Deborah Cotton, SCSW Supervisor Wateridge.
Every CSW needs a desk, a computer and filing cabinets to complete court reports, fill out the required paper work, to document school reports and search for medical information. If the Wateridge office was fully staffed, the problem would only be exacerbated.
On February 12, the Wateridge labor management committee discovered that a 7-year lease would be signed and approved by the Board of Supervisors without any additional space.
“ 
There is space we could lease near the Wateridge Office to make sure we all had a place to work and child safety wasn’t threatened,” said Isaac Robertos, CSW Wateridge.
When staff work in overcrowded spaces, several problems arise: response time is slow, emergency investigations are jeopardized, Family Maintenance Services are disrupted, reunification is slowed, mobile staff productivity decreases and mobile policy is violated. Response time for families in the same areas become disproportionate, disproportionality is created, community is put at risk, risk to child safety increases and caseloads become overwhelming.
One solution Wateridge staff presented to the Board was to rent three additional spaces adjacent to the already leased space for Wateridge DCFS.
For more information, or to get involved, contact the Wateridge Work Site Organizer Chante Barnes-Warner at change.barnes-warner@seiu721.org.