An administrator with the Iowa Department of Human Services went before a legislative panel to defend her agency’s handling of child abuse and neglect allegations. Wendy Rickman is head of Iowa’s Division of Adult, Child and Family Services.

 

Rickman says her division receives about 50,000 calls a year of alleged reports of child neglect and abuse. She says 52-percent of those reports are assessed. The hearing follows the death of 16-year-old Natalie Finn of West Des Moines last October. The teen died of starvation.  State Senator Matt McCoy, a Democrat from Des Moines, questioned if a lack of DHS social workers allowed the alleged abuse of Finn to go uninvestigated.

 

Rickman said, while she doesn’t dispute that more social workers would be beneficial, she believes Iowa’s child welfare system is NOT failing. McCoy and other lawmakers have asked the DHS for data on staffing numbers, overtime hours, and caseloads. Finn’s parents are facing numerous charges in with the death of their daughter and alleged neglect of their other children.