From what I’ve seen, the problem with the CPS worker workforce is that a significant portion of them are people who suffered abuse during their own childhoods and are out on a mission to catch child abusers as a proxy for their own trauma. These folks are zealots and do not have the objectivity necessary to make unbiased assessments in their work. I’ve seen them make decisions about certain parents very early on in their cases, labeling them either “good” or “bad” and refusing to either reassess or acknowledge that people can change.

Thankfully, they’re not all like that and I’ve worked with some very good CPS workers as well. But then you have the arguably more important problem of the fact that all of these workers (like most mental health workers and teachers) are horribly overtaxed with too many cases and too few resources to support them. Underfunding and lack of personnel make even the best efforts of the good workers hamstringed. So, the system is broken, but not because no good worker wants to do the work.