By Hank Russell
The Department of Social Services released its 2024 Annual Report on July 10. The 66-page comprehensive report details the accomplishments the department made in the past year and outlines DSS’ mission and goals moving forward. According to the annual report, more than 300,000 residents were helped by Suffolk County DSS in 2024.
The 2024 DSS Annual report touches upon the following highlights and milestones:
- The appointment of Dr. John Imhof as Commissioner of Social Services. Under his leadership, DSS has initiated a philosophy of “no more silos,” fostering open communication and collaboration among all stakeholders in the social services field, including community organizations and government partners.
- Policy reform, including the introduction of blind removal review to eliminate bias in Children Protective Services (CPS). Blind Removal meetings were created to facilitate an unbiased decision-making process in which a caseworker does not disclose any personal and demographic information about a child/family when information about the case is being presented to directors, assistant directors, and others before consideration to remove a child from his or her family is initiated.
- Improved and enhanced interagency collaboration to eliminate silos. Since March 2024, DSS, in collaboration with EAC’s nationally accredited Child Advocacy Center (CAC), has organized numerous interagency training courses on a range of crucial topics, including child protection trauma-informed care, forensic interviewing, and the multidisciplinary team (MDT) approach to child abuse investigations. These training courses have been attended by DSS Child Protective Services employees, the Suffolk County Police Department, and attorneys from both the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and the County Attorney’s Office.
- Improved and integrated cross-disciplinary training programs for staff to improve response to abuse cases. DSS, in collaboration with New York State Children’s Alliance, the county executive, the district attorney’s office and Suffolk’s EAC/Child Advocacy Center, will be provided specialized training for Suffolk County’s frontline workers on how to serve, protect, and advocate for vulnerable populations, including children and adults with disabilities, mental health disorders, and older adults through trainings, expert consultation, peer review and behavioral analysis. This training focuses on the skills necessary to interview, prosecute, investigate and protect these vulnerable populations.
- Significantly reduced wait times for requests for public assistance and improved the speed of food stamp (SNAP) applications. Under federal law, DSS has 30 days from application to process applications for food stamps and other key assistance programs under SNAP. In 2024, Newsday reported that Suffolk DSS had 2,594 SNAP applications over 30 days old – some as late by 61 days.
One year later, Suffolk DSS is in complete compliance with SNAP application processing times – and has been in compliance for weeks. New leadership and the re-structuring of staff were key factors to this success.
DSS’s new approach to processing SNAP applications includes the creation of a SNAP Compliance Officer who will be responsible for closely monitoring SNAP applications and the even distribution of applications among the DSS caseworkers.
The DSS noted a significant increase in the SNAP caseload from 42,244 cases in 2020 to 63,182 in 2024 — up 49.5%.
- Hosting of the County’s largest-ever Child Protective Services Conference, convening more than 350 professionals to transform outcomes for families in crisis. On November 8, 2024, a first-of-its-kind conference entitled “Creating Transformational Change for Families Involved with the Child Protective System” took place at the Van Nostrand Theater at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood. The guest speaker was Katie Beers, who was part of the CPS system in the 1990s and abducted, sexually abused and held captive when she was nine years old.
This all-day program brought together those whose lives or jobs are involved in CPS, including the DSS Commissioner and caseworkers and other staff, plus the county executive, the deputy county executive, legislators, family court judges, educators, doctors and otherhealthcare professionals, mental health professionals, law enforcement professionals, state and community-based service organizations, religious organizations and more.
The report also highlights the creation of the Department’s Division of Quality Management, Planning and Research (QMPR) to ensure that DSS’ goals are being met while ensuring transparency. The QMPR Division will soon introduce regular internal audits to ensure the department remains in compliance with governing codes, rules, regulations, policies and procedures.
“Overhauling the Suffolk County Department of Social Services has been a top priority of mine for the last 18 months,” said Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine. “Implementing systemic changes to ensure that thousands of families and residents are connected to essential services is paramount to ensuring the viability of our communities. I applaud the cultural shift DSS has made in terms of responsiveness, accountability and prevention and I look forward to further improvements in the coming year.”