Frontier Executive Editor Dylan Goforth spoke with Sen. Paul Rosino – R, Oklahoma City, about his plan to move the state’s child welfare program from the state Department of Human Services to a new agency called the Oklahoma Department of Child Safety and Wellbeing. He also wants to consolidate other state programs in order to have “one sole agency protecting children.” 

For the full interview, listen to our podcast. 

Dylan Goforth: You’ve spent a lot of time looking at Oklahoma’s child welfare system. Before we talk about moving the agencies around, what do you believe is maybe fundamentally wrong or not working with the way that DHS handles child welfare today?

Sen. Paul Rosino: So I would say that DHS is a massive behemoth of an agency. They have so many programs they’re working on, and child welfare probably is the most important thing that they do. These are our youngest people in the state of Oklahoma. Many of them just need an opportunity, and I think in many cases we are not doing a good job of taking care of them and making sure that they are safe.

And so, what I think DHS has a problem with right now is they’re not holistically focused on kids because the agency is so big, and that’s what I want. I want an agency that is going to look at every aspect of child safety and well-being.

Goforth: The bill last year, and then what we’re going to talk about today, would move the child welfare portion out of DHS. And so it makes me think: Why is the problem that child welfare is inside DHS rather than it being a problem with, say, leadership or staffing, funding, policy, etc.? What can a new department do that DHS cannot or is not doing today?

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Rosino: Yeah, so that’s a great question. The biggest thing for me is solely focused, right? And so right now they’re not solely focused on that. Like I said, they have aging, they have SNAP, they have childcare, they have family support, they have all these other programs, and then you have child welfare too, right?

And so, some of the other states that I have visited with — and I’ll use Tennessee as a prime example — they have moved to this model too, where everything for children is in one agency. Connecticut has something similar, and I think Florida does too. And all of those states are seeing a lot more success.

And what I would like to do also, if you remember the bill, it also combines the Office of Juvenile Affairs, eliminates (the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth), combines all of them to consolidate services and consolidate all the things that matter to make sure children are safe.

And so that is the goal: that we have one agency that is holistically taking care of children. And the cost should not be any more money than we’re already using because our budgetary number, our budgetary aspect of this, will just move over.

So, for example, the money that we spend on child welfare in DHS would just move over to the agency. The budget that OJA has would just move over to that agency. The budget that OCCY has would just move over. And so you may have a little bit of administration cost, but for the most part, the cost should be neutral, and we would have one, sole agency protecting children.

Goforth: So, if I remember right – talking about the bill from last session – I’m going to make sure I can wrap my head around this because it’s creating a new agency, or it would have created a new agency, but not necessarily all new jobs, right? Some of these jobs would be shifted — DHS employees shifted from DHS to the child welfare agency. Correct?

Rosino: Yeah. I know people get hung up on this new agency, new agency, new agency. What it’s doing is, yes, it’s creating a new agency by consolidating and condensing and bringing budgets together, and the employees can shift over into these positions.

But what it should do — and it’s not going to be a silver bullet. I have never said that. I don’t think that in one year or two years it’s going to fix everything. But we need our child welfare workers better trained. We need to pay them more money than they’ve been getting. We are having problems with people falling through the cracks.

We’ve had several losses this year of young children that have either been touched by DHS or in state custody. That to me is unacceptable. It is absolutely unacceptable, and we can’t continue going down this road and just throw our hands up and say, “Okay, well, it’s another two-year-old, or it’s another seven-year-old, or it’s another five-year-old.” That’s not going to work.

And so, if we don’t do something different, then things are going to stay the same. And I just can’t do that. I’ve been the chair for seven years watching this, and it’s time we do something big and bold.

Goforth: So it seems that your conclusion, or part of your conclusion, is maybe that DHS is too broad, or their responsibilities are too broad, and that individually child welfare has suffered because of the breadth of the responsibilities that DHS has.

Rosino: I don’t think I can say it better than that. Yes, I do think, Dylan, that that is a major issue. And that’s why I think if we had one agency that solely focused, again, on safety and well-being of children, you would have to at some point see change and better outcomes. You would have to see that, in my opinion.

Goforth: What would happen? Because you mentioned OJA being moved to child welfare as well, so you’re not just spinning child welfare out of DHS. You’re combining it with OJA.

And I guess one of the questions that people have had is, you’re talking about abused or neglected children in foster care, and then also children involved in the justice system, and those are not always necessarily the same populations. Is there — I don’t know if risk is the right word — but are there potential issues that might create? Or have other states that have done this or done similar things gone through this process and maybe worked those out already?

Rosino: Again, another great question. So the population of the children in the Office of Juvenile Affairs, OJA, would not be combined with the children that are in child welfare or the foster care system. That would still stay separate. They would still have COJC and their own group homes, and the children in child welfare, especially in the foster care system, would still be on their own.

But basically what happens is many of these kids have the same issues. The children in OJA, the juveniles there … they’ve been adjudicated, so that’s where the difference is. But they have the same issues. Many of the kids at OJA have been DHS children at some point.

So I have worked very closely with Director Millington, very closely with Jeffrey Cartmell at DHS, to make sure that when we put this all together, every piece and every part of the puzzle will be looked at.

Goforth: So the bill last year passed in the Senate almost unanimously and then stalled in the House. I know that you said the reasons maybe why it stalled in the House are for the House to answer.

But do you at this point have a plan for maybe what needs to change, or an approach that you might need to take differently, or even just information that needs to be explained, to help get it through that part of the process this time?

Rosino: Yes. So I think last year, as you saw, a lot of things happened. Session ended abruptly. I think we are working through some of the issues right now. Our staff writers are working to make sure that we correct anything that may have been a hiccup in the bill. So we’re doing that right now.

We are having leadership conversations back and forth because this bill will be a priority for the Senate this year. (Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton) is also very concerned and really wants this to pass, so we want to make sure that we’re working as a partnership with the House to try to get this across the finish line.