Feedback sought at public forum as part of a five-year improvement plan for County’s Family Services

Feedback sought at public forum as part of a five-year improvement plan for County’s Family Services

Sabrina Jaar Marzouka led the Oct. 2 Department of Community and Family Services Forum.

Krista Briggs

POUGHKEEPSIE — On the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 2, the Dutchess County Department of Community and Family Services (DCFS) held an open forum at the Department of Mental Health to discuss a five-year Child and Family Services (CFS) Plan.

Fiscal and staffing challenges aside, the focus of DCFS remains on refining the five-year plan, meeting its targets and serving the county’s most vulnerable residents, many of whom depend on these supports simply to survive.

The forum, which provided residents with detailed information on county services and programs for the domestic, physical and emotional wellbeing of children and adults in the county, also gave attendees the opportunity to weigh in on the plan, which runs from 2024 through 2029.

Dutchess County is obliged to provide a plan detailing social services offerings to New York State every five years, DCFS Commissioner Sabrina Jaar Marzouka said. The county works in conjunction with the state to identify programs for further development and improvement.

“We do not choose our goals,” Marzouka said. “They are prescribed by the state. So they give us a handful to choose from, based on what we determine to be our needs and from our data.”

The county can adjust goals as needed but must meet state requirements. These goals and their associated strategies are determined by research, data, and stakeholder meetings with companies, agencies, and individuals.

While DCFS team members tackled various components of the proposal’s planning stages, the end-result is expected to be a cohesive plan created by the state, county, and residents following public comment.

While programs such as Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP), fall under the DCFS umbrella, the public session focused on three specific offerings — Child Protective Services, Preventive Services, and Adult Services.

Child Protective Services (CPS) seeks to ensure the safety of vulnerable children from suspected abuse, neglect or trafficking of minors. If confirmed, CPS may remove a child from the home. Its preference is for placement with relatives as opposed to foster care provided by strangers to maintain familial, environmental, and cultural ties.

“You don’t want the child to lose that connection,” Marzouka said. “Because that is their world.”

To prevent family ties from being cut, even temporarily, Preventive Services strives to strengthen affected families through domestic monitoring, motivational interviews, parental training/retraining, and family team meetings — strategies designed to expedite foster care discharge or circumvent foster care altogether.

Adult Services supports people in need of supervision (PINS) with a goal of preserving adult dignity. Currently, there are 30 adult guardian cases overseen by DCFS, a number which continues to climb.

Obstacles to the continuity of certain services remain.

Funding is a constant challenge. For example, childcare programs, the eligibility for which now includes working- and middle-class families, may run dry by 2025 unless the state provides relief.

Caseworker shortages present yet another challenge. To this end, the state has eased civil service requirements for positions such as social workers and case managers via NY HELPS, a program which may or may not be temporary.

According to Dutchess County’s Human Resources Commissioner Steven Rector, while specific data on caseworker shortages hasn’t been made available to his department yet, he concurs with Marzouka, who conveyed staff retention concerns.

“[These] titles are considered challenging to recruit for [and] with higher than average turnover,” Rector said.

Latest News

Fallen trees injure man, destroy fences at dog shelter

Two uprooted locust trees still lie in the yard in front of Animal Farm Foundation’s original kennels where they fell on a fence during a storm on Thursday, June 19.

Nathan Miller

AMENIA — Fallen trees, uprooted and splintered during a thunderstorm, injured a man, destroyed fences and damaged a dog kennel at the Animal Farm Foundation facilities in Bangall.

Isaias Nunez was cleaning along a road on the property with Marco Ortiz, another employee of the dog shelter, when the storm rolled in on the afternoon of Thursday, June 19.

Keep ReadingShow less
Siglio Press: Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature

Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.

Richard Kraft

Siglio Press is a small, independent publishing house based in Egremont, Massachusetts, known for producing “uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.” Founded and run by editor and publisher Lisa Pearson, Siglio has, since 2008, designed books that challenge conventions of both form and content.

A visit to Pearson’s airy studio suggests uncommon work, to be sure. Each of four very large tables were covered with what looked to be thousands of miniature squares of inkjet-printed, kaleidoscopically colored pieces of paper. Another table was covered with dozens of book/illustration-size, abstracted images of deer, made up of colored dots. For the enchanted and the mystified, Pearson kindly explained that these pieces were to be collaged together as artworks by the artist Richard Kraft (a frequent contributor to the Siglio Press and Pearson’s husband). The works would be accompanied by writings by two poets, Elizabeth Zuba and Monica Torre, in an as-yet-to-be-named book, inspired by a found copy of a worn French children’s book from the 1930s called “Robin de Bois” (Robin Hood).

Keep ReadingShow less
Cycling season: A roundup of our region’s rentals and where to ride them

Cyclists head south on the rail trail from Copake Falls.

Alec Linden

After a shaky start, summer has well and truly descended upon the Litchfield, Berkshire and Taconic hills, and there is no better way to get out and enjoy long-awaited good weather than on two wheels. Below, find a brief guide for those who feel the pull of the rail trail, but have yet to purchase their own ten-speed. Temporary rides are available in the tri-corner region, and their purveyors are eager to get residents of all ages, abilities and inclinations out into the open road (or bike path).

For those lucky enough to already possess their own bike, perhaps the routes described will inspire a new way to spend a Sunday afternoon. For more, visit millertonnews.com/tag/bike-route to check out two ride-guides from local cyclists that will appeal to enthusiasts of many levels looking for a varied trip through the region’s stunning summer scenery.

Keep ReadingShow less