Commissioners hear complaints about Children & Youth Services
Aug. 6—POTTSVILLE — The Schuylkill County commissioners addressed complaints about Children and Youth Services at their Thursday work session.
Two county residents, Lori Keefer and Lisa Conti, submitted written comments about their experiences with the agency. Keefer said she believes agency staff members are "undereducated and inexperienced" and their practices unethical.
"Removing children from their families only benefits payments to the Children and Youth, the foster system, adoption agencies, lawyers, judges, as well as other agencies that are involved," Keefer wrote. "Removing children from a bonded family is very detrimental to the child's mental development.
"As commissioners who are in charge of our communities, you should educate yourselves to the consequences of this practice and provide oversight to prevent the abuses that are in the agency."
Conti wrote that the agency is using taxpayer money without oversight.
"There are many children in this county that do not belong in foster care," Conti wrote. "They are being kept in the system, and family and friends are fighting for them. There are parents who have completed case plans and still getting the rights to their children terminated. Why is no one looking into this?"
Conti and her family have previously organized protests outside the Children & Youth Services office in Pottsville to call for the return of her grandson and to raise awareness about other families' experiences with the agency.
After the meeting, commissioners Chairman Barron L. Hetherington said he would inform Children & Youth Services Administrator Lisa Stevens of the comments, but said that he has faith in what the agency does.
"It's all very well-monitored, and they have to pass annual inspections," he said. "I've never found a situation where Children & Youth have been derelict of duty or have done something that was not covered by the courts or legal systems."
Hetherington said the agency acts in accordance with court decisions and state and federal laws.
"They don't make the rules, but they have to enforce them," he said.
Hetherington also gave a reminder during the meeting that the Schuylkill County Fair runs through Saturday.
He said that, according to fair President Paul Kennedy, the event has been a success, with Tuesday setting "the all-time attendance record in the history of the fair."
In finance, the commissioners approved budgetary adjustments in the amounts of $210 and $7,763 for domestic relations and $600 and $5,000 for tax assessment.
Paul E. Buber, director of finance, said the adjustments are transfers of money and will not increase overall spending.
In other business, the commissioners approved:
—An amendment to the homeland security grant program agreement in the amount of $1,718,733.19 for the South Central Task Force, to be used to respond to acts of terrorism and other catastrophic events.
—An agreement with Cafardi Ferguson Wyrick Weis & Gabriel LLC, Sewickley, to provide background check services at a rate of $275 per background check.
—An agreement with Teamsters Local Union 429 and Pamela Smith to settle and terminate arbitration in the amount of $5,000.
—The creation of a clerk typist 1 position in the tax claim department effective Aug. 5.
