The state agency that investigates child abuse cases will shed nearly a third of the social workers at its local office this year, saying other parts of the state need the positions more than Cowlitz County.

Children’s Administration officials said the changes will not create additional risks for the county’s abused and neglected children, but some child advocates say having fewer people investigating and overseeing at-risk families will allow abuse to go unchecked.

“The most vulnerable people in our community are the ones that are going to be impacted,” said Tina Trigg, the volunteer coordinator for Cowlitz County’s Court Appointed Special Advocate for children program. “Which just breeds more and more problems, more and more (at-risk) children, more and more abuse.”

Officials with the state Department of Social and Health Services, which oversees the agency, say they’ve determined child abuse and neglect is more prevalent in King, Kitsap and Pierce counties as well as Eastern Washington than Cowlitz County and other parts of the state. They are cutting positions in less-busy areas and shifting the jobs to counties with larger case loads, said Children’s Administration spokeswoman Sherry Hill. As a result, Kelso’s office, which serves Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties, will lose 10 of its 33 social workers.

Anita Teeter, who oversees Kelso’s Children’s Administration office, said the remaining caseworkers will be able to keep up with investigations of child abuse and neglect and will be able to monitor at-risk families as they always have.

“Children are not at risk,” she said.

But Trigg said it’s difficult to believe that reductions of 10 social workers won’t have an impact on the county’s at-risk children.

“Because there’s less staff, there are more cases for each social worker,” said Trigg, whose program helps children who become involved with the court system because of their parents’ troubles. “It begins to spiral out of control. There’s no services. There’s not involvement by the state to protect these children.”

Trigg pointed out that the Kelso office recently killed off a support group for fathers. Teeter acknowledged the program had been eliminated, but said it had nothing to do with reductions in staff. A similar program, she said, is being provided by a local nonprofit.

No other programs were eliminated as a result of the staff cuts, Teeter said.

The agency cut 7.5 jobs in July and will trim the remaining 2.5 positions by January, Hill said.

State officials, she said, used a formula to identify areas with the highest need for additional staff. Ideally, each Children’s Administration social worker carries a work load of no more than 18 cases at any time, she said.

Despite repeated requests for information, DSHS did not provide a complete picture of the number of cases handled by the Cowlitz County office. Instead, it offered what it called “snapshots” from various months, during which case loads fluctuated wildly. The agency said the Kelso office had 16.36 cases per social worker in June of last year, 18.32 in September 2008 and 8.34 in December of last year.

But smaller case loads don’t mean Cowlitz County, which has high rates of drug abuse, has seen a reduction in abuse or neglect, Trigg said. It may be, she said, that those cases are simply not being investigated or reported because Children’s Administration doesn’t have enough staff.

Trigg said she wondered how cases could be on the decline during a recession, when families are increasingly stressed and reports of drug abuse and domestic violence abound.

“That seems very strange to me,” she said.