Social Worker Committee Update

Dear OCEA member,

OCEA’s Social Worker Committee comprised of Social Workers and OCEA staff met again on Tuesday, August 28th to continue work on some long-standing issues facing you and your coworkers in particular the lack of a specific County framework for managing both Social Worker caseload and workload.

Case load management in other Counties
There was discussion of Social Worker caseloads and how they are governed in other counties.  Members of the committee volunteered to assist in the research of Riverside, Los Angeles and Alameda counties as a guide to improving efficiencies and developing a case and work load framework which Orange County currently lacks. Since the last meeting, a request for information was submitted to the County to gain case-specific information.

IHSS Forum coming
There was strong representation from our members assigned to IHSS and discussion to initiate an IHSS caseload forum. A request was made by OCEA and the caseload forum has been activated with the first meeting to be held in October.

The committee also reviewed the minutes from the July 26th meeting and received a recap of the CFS Caseload Management Forum meeting attended by OCEA staff, and Social Workers. Members who attended the forum gave feedback and described their experience, strongly encouraged Social Workers to attend and participate in the discussion. 

Meeting dates 
The Social Worker Committee will meet the 4th Tuesday of each month from 6 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. and is open to all Social Workers assigned to the Social Services Agency. It is critical that you talk about the committee’s efforts with your coworkers. They need to know that work is being done to resolve the issues facing Social Workers in Orange County.

Your OCEA Stewards and workplace leaders are committed to getting this work done and standing together, we can.

In Solidarity,


Bridgette Washington
Sr. Labor Relations Representative

Publication Date: September 10, 2018