DCS child abuse hotline cuts wait time, hangups

Improvements to Tennessee's child abuse phone line have allowed more calls to be answered and dramatically decreased the time callers wait on hold - reversing trends that alarmed officials, child advocates and lawmakers last year.

New data from the Department of Children's Services show it usually took less than 40 seconds for a call to be answered during the past four months. That's down from an average wait of just more than three minutes in 2012, and average waits of more than five minutes in the call center's worst-performing months.

DCS also shortened the hotline's prerecorded message, which had included 15 seconds of silence.

That change - and adjustments to staffing - cut the number of hangups. In recent years, a quarter of calls were abandoned during low-performing months, but during the past four months less than 5 percent have gone unanswered.

"We would like to continue to drive that down," said Larry Martin, a special adviser assigned to DCS by Gov. Bill Haslam. "The key metrics certainly indicate improvement, significant improvement. I think we can continue that."

Each year, about 165,000 abuse and neglect reports come into the DCS hotline, whether from a neighbor, teacher, doctor or police officer. Almost two-thirds prompt a caseworker to respond. The other third of calls are "screened out," meaning investigators are already working the case or didn't receive enough information to warrant a check, officials said.

The call center began missing more calls in 2010. Problems persisted through October 2012, when the center's director resigned and two non-DCS groups were asked to examine what was going wrong. DCS officials said then that more calls, clunky computer software and high staff turnover contributed to answering the calls.

The department added staff and got new computers and phones, which made some difference, officials said.

Changes since October have been guided by the state's Office of Customer Focused Government, which seeks government efficiency. That office also tapped three unpaid experts to help, looking at everything from the typing speeds of call takers to phone technology.

"We didn't really have trained call center managers," Martin said of DCS. "We had people that were good, knowledgeable at the subject matter that DCS is responsible for."

'Like 911 calls'

Martin described improvements to lawmakers during a special hearing last week, taking to the podium after Rep. Sherry Jones, D-Antioch, asked about the "big problem" of missed calls.

Among key changes, Martin said, was examining peak call times so that enough staffers can be scheduled in those periods.

DCS also found problems with the 90-second recorded message callers first heard.

"Once you endured that, then at the end of the message, there was a roughly 15-second silent period," Martin said. "Fifteen seconds, if you're on the phone, is a long time. People would hang up, thinking they had been disconnected."

The agency cut the silence and trimmed the message to 15 seconds.

Attention has also turned to the call takers, whose work consists of listening to graphic details of abuse allegations for hours on end. They must know how to question hesitant or emotional callers for details that determine how DCS will investigate.

In addition to recruiting more staffers with child welfare and customer-service experience, the call center now hosts daily meetings and monthly briefings to show call volume trends and identify training opportunities.

Martin said the new DCS goal is to answer 90 percent of calls within 10 seconds - a standard used by emergency dispatchers.

"We're trying to set a standard that is higher, because these are more like 911 calls," Martin said.

DCS also has a new way to connect high-priority callers to call takers trained in handling calls from professionals. The department has used special phone lines for police, doctors and teachers, although Jones suggested last week that too few people know of them.

"I don't think there is any question that we need more marketing out there," said DCS Interim Commissioner Jim Henry.

Accomplishing such goals will fall to the center's newly named director, Dimple Dudley, who served as interim director since October.

While the Office of Customer Focused Government completed its work, the child welfare nonprofit Annie E. Casey Foundation has not yet delivered recommendations about the call center that officials anticipated by the end of 2012.

Screen-outs studied

The federal government also examines state child welfare agencies based on the percentage of calls screened out from call centers, which don't prompt investigations.

In 2011, Tennessee screened out 37 percent of calls - below the national average by 2 percentage points, federal numbers show.

DCS spokeswoman Molly Sudderth said employees at the call center answer standard, computerized questions at the end of each call to determine which ones should be screened out. Calls may be screened if callers don't identify specific perpetrators or locations, if DCS is already involved with a family (the information is entered into the case file), or if multiple calls come in rapidly on the same day.

From 2010 through 2012, six Tennessee children died sometime after a call about their safety was screened out by call takers, DCS reported in response to Democratic lawmakers' recent questions.

One child was the subject of three screen-outs in 2011. Of those three, one call was disconnected before information was provided. The other two arrived after DCS was already investigating the child's well-being, allowing information to be added to the file. The child died almost a year later, in 2012.