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intervene requiring more attorney time responding to these. The Court continues to place greater emphasis on outside mediation before bringing a case to court again increasing the demand on the attorneys' time. In addition to managing the legal work for children in the agency's custody, the attorney is responsible for providing advice as to whether the agency has sufficient legal standing to remove a child from the home, drafting petitions to take children into the agency's custody, responding to subpoenas from other courts requesting records or social workers to testify, and providing training to child welfare social workers in legal matters (standards of information needed to support the agency's decision to remove, providing testimony to the Court, and preparation of reports to the Court). The attorney is also responsible for initial 7-day Hearings and Adjudication/Dispositional Hearings in CPS requiring considerable preparation and trial time. During 2006 there was also a high turnover in social workers in child welfare. The need to provide legal training for staff is vital to the agency's ability to protect children and provide permanence. As of December 31, 2006, 22 of 29 social workers conducting CPS investigations and providing case management had less than one year of experience with the agency in this position (76%), 9 of the 22 social workers providing services to the children in foster care had less than one year of experience with the agency in this position (41 %), and 5 of 11 direct supervisors had less than one year of supervisory experience with the agency (46%). Because of the turnover in agency attorneys and the high caseloads the attorneys were not available to provide needed training to the new social workers and supervisors to assure that they were able to gather information needed to support the agency's position in court and provide adequate reports and testimony to the Court. According to the "Standards of Practice for Lawyers Representing Child Welfare Agencies" published by the American Bar Association 2004, "high caseloads are considered one of the major barriers to quality representation and a source of high attorney turnover." (Page 20). Recent studies recommend caseloads of no more than 60 cases (could be multiple children per case) or no more than 100 children. According to the ABA (Foundations for Success Strengthening your Agency Attorney Office), attorneys need 3 hours of preparation time for every one hour in court. Applying these standards, we have required our agency attorneys to handle a significantly higher caseload than recommended. As a result of the high caseloads, we were out of compliance on several cases during 2006. Failure to maintain compliance to mandates for judicial review impacts eligibility for funding to support the cost of foster care and social work time. Several counties with a similar number of children in custody were contacted regarding legal support. The chart below reflects the information secured from the counties that responded to our request. Children in Number of Count Custod Attbrne s Comments Buncombe 255 5 4 full-time attorneys handle child welfare cases; one attorney carries 40% child welfare cases and manages the legal de artment. Catawba 230 2 100% of attorne s' time devoted to Child Welfare cases. Cleveland 160 1 Agency SW's do a great deal of preparation of petitions once case staffed with attorne . Gaston 207 2 100% of attorne s' time devoted to Child Welfare cases. Onslow 238 3 2 attorneys handle only child welfare cases, the third attorney spends 40-50% of time handling child welfare cases with the remainder of time managing legal staff and coordinating work. A contract attorne handles child su ort cases. Counties that did not respond to request for information include Cumberland, Guilford, and Pitt. REQUEST We are requesting that an Attorney II position be established to provide legal support and manage the entire legal department (two Attorney I positions, two support staff, and one temporary court case manager). We project that this attorney would spend 50% of time handling court cases and 50% of time managing the legal department and providing training to the other attorneys, social workers and child support agents. ~'