Local News

As the nation recognizes March as Social Worker Awareness Month, Florida honors the many thousands of social work professionals contributing in helping Florida's most vulnerable residents.

For Marichelle Nelson-Henry, the start of each day gives her the chance to make a difference in a child's life. As a mother of a one-year old, she works in a profession, where she takes nothing for granted.

With case files in hand, Nelson-Henry is a DCF child protective investigator. For the last six years, she has been knocking on doors, checking on new allegations of abuse and following up on open cases.

She went to one home, accompanied by CBS4 Liv Davalos, where there were allegations of domestic violence and a concern for the three young boys who lived there.  There was no one home, so she asked questions of neighbors, like in this case,  "When you see them, are they clean? Do they look like they are cared for?

She then would head to the boys' school to talk to them and get more information. When their mother would arrive back at her home, so would Nelson-Henry to learn more about the welfare of the children.

She said, "You don't go in there with any expectations. You need to ensure child safety before you leave the home. You have to ensure that."

In the past, DCF has come under fire for doing just the opposite. While in foster care, five-year-old Rilya Wilson disappeared and had never been found. A recent state report found that DCF investigators in Miami were pushed by bosses to close their case reports on abused or neglected children before determining if they were safe.

Nelson-Henry said, "I personally have never been coerced to close a case prior to it be ready to be closed."

But the negative reports along with the public's  perception did not help make her job any easier. She responded that, "People automatically assume their children will be taken away. People don't associate good comes with DCF."

In fact, out of the 1,200 calls DCF receives monthly, less than 10 percent end in a child being removed from a home.

With her love of children so evident when she helps a family deal with allegations of child neglect, she tries to make the lives of families better, which is an important part of her job. DCF offers child care services along with referrals to other services for job training, health care or parenting classes.

One woman commented how her experience with DCF was a good one, and was grateful. She said, "Nelson helped me in a lot of ways. She got clothes for my kids. She gave me job referrals and helped me get beds and sofas and stuff for the kids."

Nelson-Henry commented, "As long as you are able to ensure a child's safety and provide services for a family in need, then at the end of the day you have done your job."