Last week, the Office of the Auditor General completed a special report regarding the Arizona Department of Child Safety’s administrative staffing levels. Auditors found that the Department’s administrative staffing level “appears reasonable.”
On Sunday, the Arizona Daily Star reported that a Tucson 5-year-old, who was placed in a garbage-type container and burned with scalding water by her adoptive mother, Samantha Osteraas, had previously been placed in a foster home with alleged child molester, David Frodsham, by DCS.
According to sources close to the case, DCS was contacted with concerns about Osteraas prior to her adoption of the 5-year old. Prior to that, the little girl’s biological mother had raised concerns about Frodsham that were ignored.
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That, says critics, is not reasonable and question why DCS is filling up administrative slots while caseworkers are vital. But critics ask: what one would expect of the Department under the leadership of Greg McKay?
McKay, who lacks any real management experience, was put in charge by Governor Doug Ducey in 2015. The move to make the former head of the DCS Office of Child Welfare Investigations, head of the entire Department shocked many in the child welfare community.
A bill, SB 1359, sponsored by Sen. Katie Hobbs, hopes to ensure that DCS will someday be administered by someone with an understanding of preventative services to families and the well-being as opposed to viewing the job from a law enforcement point of view.
A similar bill was sponsored by Rep. Rebecca Rios last year. According to the News Times, the governor scoffed at it. Ducey’s spokesman Daniel Scarpinato told the News Times that bill was nothing more than “a political stunt.”
“It hasn’t even been assigned to a committee, let alone passed through the chambers, and our focus is on real meaningful reform to keep the kids of Arizona safe,” Scarpinato told the News Times. “The governor inherited a very broken system that needs a lot of work, but we’re focused on serious things, not some stunt to get publicity.”
But publicity – of the bad kind – is all that DCS and McKay are producing a year later.
So far, SB1359 has not been assigned to committee and probably will never get a hearing. Instead, the House Democrats are wasting time on bills like HB 2142, which forces foster parents to be trained in cultural hygiene and will only have the effect of reducing the number of good foster parents.
As a result, activists are urging the public to fight for SB 1359. SB 1359 requires the governor to appoint as director of DCS someone who has as a minimum:
● Administrative experience in the protection of children from maltreatment and in family support services.
● A master’s or doctoral degree in social work, public health, human services, public administration or policy, law, clinical psychology or a closely related field.
● At least twelve years of experience in the provision and supervision of child welfare, public health or social services programs, including evidence of community collaborations.
● At least two years of demonstrated successful experience in the management of a large health or human services system in either the governmental or nonprofit sector or a related sector and evidence of collaboration and effective partnerships with the community.