When Ross Hunter was appointed last year as secretary of the new Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), he made a commitment to visit every office to learn from employees who would eventually work for DCYF. He also committed to visit with community members and stakeholders across the state. Since then, Ross has traveled across the state, hearing from hundreds of staff and community partners.
The conversations have been enlightening, enthusiastic and, at times, deeply personal. Above all, Ross has learned so much more about how we’re doing at delivering services to children, youth and families. He’s seen first-hand the immense skill and dedication staff and community partners bring to the job each day. The visits have also shed light on some potential problems that the new agency will need to tackle, and helped Ross begin to contemplate possible solutions. He will be delving deeper into some of those issues in later blog posts, but we wanted to provide a recap of what Ross and DCYF support staff have heard so far.
At each staff office and community event, Ross has asked people to voice their hopes and fears for the development of the new agency, and for the system in general. Here’s a snapshot of those thoughts and suggestions:
Hopes
- Opportunity for increased input from the field/front-line staff, particularly in policy and legislative decisions.
- Improved IT systems with increased user testing that will enhance efficiency over time and reduce paperwork.
- Increased transparency on how government makes decisions to implement services to improve outcomes for children and families.
- Improved coordination between agencies, including the former Children’s Administration (CA), Juvenile Rehabilitation (JR) and the Department of Early Learning (DEL), and with Department of Health (DOH) and others.
- Strengthened partnerships with tribes.
- Focus on a more holistic approach to what works for children, youth and families.
- Opportunity to redesign services for those most in need.
- A renewed client focus on how services are organized to best help people navigate and access them.
- Increased outreach and collaboration between providers and agency staff, including more information on what is available; brokering services where there are gaps (i.e. in rural areas); and increased systems coordination.
- Opportunity to reach more families before dependency.
- Opportunity to build an agency culture built on respect.
Fears/Concerns
- Placement issues for children in foster care continue, including limited availability of child care and medical treatment for children with behavioral or mental health issues.
- No new resources for trauma-informed care for staff, foster parents and community access.
- Outside problems, such as inadequate housing, mental health and drug treatment accessibility for biological parents. These issues impede their ability to move to reunification, but are not issues under DCYF’s jurisdiction to solve.
- Continued problems with staff recruitment and retention, burnout with paperwork, secondary trauma exposure and too much overtime.
- Lack of adequate training and support for foster parents.
- Risk of losing focus on any one part of the current system as the new agency is formed.
- Need for more appropriate support and services for middle school-aged kids and adolescents.
This is just a sample of the thoughtful feedback that has been shared during Ross’ visits across Washington. If you are not able to make it to one of his community conversations, please continue to send your thoughts to mail to:communications@dcyf.wa.gov.
Ross’ tour will continue through the July 1 transition, so if he hasn’t made it to your neck of the woods yet, keep an eye on our events webpage for upcoming tour dates, and help us spread the word.