The Wayne County Office of Children & Youth is currently operating under a provisional license due to significant shortcomings identified by state officials, following a child’s death and multiple documentation failures.
The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services adjusted the agency’s license from full to provisional on May 27, with an expiration date set for November 27. This timeline underscores the urgency for the Honesdale-based agency to rectify its operations before the state’s next inspection.
State reports indicate that while the agency is not directly blamed for the child’s death, Wayne County has submitted “acceptable” corrective plans. The department reserves the right to issue up to four provisional licenses before potentially revoking the license for insufficient progress.
This pattern of extended provisional licensing is not unique; similar situations have occurred with child protection agencies in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties.
Agency Challenges
County Commissioner Jocelyn Cramer pointed to “really significant staffing shortages” as a primary challenge, a situation not uncommon among child services statewide. She noted that the agency’s current difficulties are mostly “clerical” in nature.
Cramer explained, “It was never the care of a child that was the problem, but we got behind on some clerical stuff.” She mentioned the agency is operating with about 30% fewer staff than needed, a shortage persisting since the COVID-19 pandemic. The county has been actively recruiting, advertising, and offering signing bonuses to address this issue.
Efforts to contact agency director Jeannine Latsch were unsuccessful, but Cramer remains optimistic about regaining the full license, stating, “My expectation is that we’ll work our way through this pretty quickly.”
For further details, see the inspection reports attached to the provisional license.
Inspection Findings
Inspection reports highlighted several deficiencies, including:
- Inadequate risk assessment that did not consider the characteristics of parents, caregivers, and household members.
- Failure to timely submit seven general protective services cases to the department.
- Lack of rationale for child placement in records.
- Absence of a completed child permanency plan and evidence of participation in its development.
- Insufficient involvement of case planning team members in independent living plans.
- Delayed supervisor reviews on several intake records.
- Insufficient evidence that law enforcement was notified promptly in certain cases.
- Lack of communication with a child’s primary care physician regarding health-impacting circumstances.
- Insufficient documentation of financial stability for foster parent applicants.
- Delayed annual evaluation review by a foster parent.
