CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Texas Adult Protective Services is a state agency that looks into abuse, neglect, and exploitation of elderly or disabled people.
The agency provides some valuable services, but the staffers in Texas have been plagued with a high turnover rate.
The problem has been serious enough to force some significant changes all to give employees a bigger incentive to stay.
"It was very difficult during that time of high caseload and high turnover to do our job effectively. We were not providing quality services and quality work because we didn't have the manpower to do it," APS program admin Jennifer Catalani said.
In the fiscal year 2018, nearly half of newly hired caseworkers left their job within their first year, resulting in a 50 percent turnover rate.
"The moral was low because it just felt like there was no relief in sight," Catalani said.
Relief came in 2019 with a new mentor program being added for new hires and a $750 pay raise for APS caseworkers and supervisors.
"That's just been a real morale booster to not only our tenure workers, management, but also it's a great incentive for new employees coming on board, which can be a very intimidating field," APS investigator Natalie Vasquez said.
Most recently, for the fiscal year 2019, the turnover rate dropped to 20 percent and is projected to be below 17 percent for the fiscal year 2020.
The 194 first-year workers who signed up for the mentor program, 81 percent, are still on the job.
"With the mentor program, we're able to pair up tenure staff with new hires, and we provide the new hires with the tools to be able to do their job effectively but also efficiently," Vasquez said.
According to Vasquez, all of the changes being made are making a difference in both the new hire process and in the workroom.
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