Fired CPS supervisor says case workers overwhelmed by work load

The former CPS supervisor involved with Leiliana Wright said case workers were overwhelmed and drowning in work when the Grand Prairie girl’s case arrived.

Leiliana, 4, spent the first two years of her life with her grandparents while her mom was in prison. But it was the drug-abusing mom who had custody of Leiliana when police say she and her boyfriend tortured and killed the little girl.

Amber Davila, who was fired after Leiliana's death, says she and her colleagues were “drowning from an overload of cases.” When Leiliana's case came in on January 4, she says they had dozens of abandoned cases left over from three case workers who quit.

Davila said she only had one assignable worker and five vacancies in her unit.

"The workload tripled,” said Davila. “We were all drowning and needed help. We needed workers."

Ten weeks later, Leiliana was dead.

FOX 4 requested the memo about what specifically happened in Leiliana's case but CPS considered most of it confidential. It does lay out failure after failure that led to the 4-year-old remaining in a dangerous home.

The memo says Davila and her staff "failed to eliminate danger indicators and reduce risk factors to ensure child safety".

Davila said she could not speak about Leiliana's case but blamed the revolving door of cases for lapses in communication.

"As a supervisor, you only know what the case worker tells you, “said Davila. “We have to trust our workers."

The former supervisor says Claudell Banks, the case worker who was fired after Leiliana's death, had 70 cases in January. The ideal number is 20 to 25.

“It's obviously not okay to have 70,” said Leiliana’s grandmother, Alisa Clakley.

And it's not just former CPS workers showing their frustration. Soon after Leiliana's killing, a parent who visited CPS posted a photo on with a whiteboard with a tally of cases with a mad face at the bottom and the message, "stop assigning us cases."

“Changes need to be made,” said Craig. “Changes need to be made. Obviously there is an issue here."

Since FOX 4 started exposing numerous warning signs CPS had about Leiliana's mother, a total of six employees have left the agency in addition to three workers who were fired or forced to resign, including Davila.

Two top administrators have also retired with the latest being a supervisor of regional directors.