Nebraska is seeing more abused and neglected children come into the welfare system and is facing staffing shortages in case managers. Gov. Pete Ricketts said the Department of Health and Human Services has seen a 29% increase in the number of cases during the pandemic. There are currently around 600 more kids in the state's child welfare system than there were in September 2019."We know with the pandemic, it had an impact on families," Ricketts said.On Tuesday Ricketts applauded Nebraska child welfare workers for weathering the storm.He said they also completed a smooth transition taking over case management in the Omaha metro area from the private-based St. Francis Ministries this summer."One of the reasons why we moved away from St. Francis; we were not pleased with the way they were managing the Eastern Service Area. They were not hiring people fast enough to be able to keep up with the caseloads and demand," Ricketts said.The governor said the lawmakers passed a 20% pay increase for case workers this last session.Since March, the turnover rate has gone from nearly 5% to 3.7%.The state is using $20 million from general funds and another $10 million from federal pandemic relief funds.Kayla Drummond, a caseworker in Geneva, believes the boost in pay made a difference."I did think it kept a lot of people there just because of the increase. Because what we do and the pay really just weren't matching up of how much they're asking," Drummond said.The state has also hired more than 100 workers in the Omaha metro since March. DHHS still needs to hire around 50 more staff. Each new hire will have 14 weeks of training."We have hired quite a few teammates. Many of them remain in training, or they're only going to be carrying one, two, four cases as they are onboarded and building their skills," said DHHS Child and Family Services Director Stephanie Beasley.Beasley said that will help address some of the concerns highlighted in a recent Foster Care Review Office report that 60% of caseloads in the Omaha area were still too high.Beasley said those case managers with high caseloads are getting additional support."Even though their caseloads are higher than what we want, they are being supported in the best way that we can while we are on-boarding the new teammates," Beasley said.She said over the past couple of months, they have seen marked improvement in caseloads across the state including in Omaha. "They are doing wonderful work and we can see that in the numbers," Ricketts said.The state is also working on prevention. On Oct. 1 it will launch home-based trauma treatment programs as part of the Families First Prevention Services Act."Which is a four-month home-based trauma treatment program, working to identify core issues that families face within the home, increasing positive parenting skills and providing therapeutic services to address mental health needs," Beasley said. Lawmakers also approved using $30 million of federal pandemic relief funds to boost mental health services."All with the idea of improving mental health care facilities for kids," Ricketts said.