Our new agency’s work with the federally recognized tribes in Washington is some of the most important we do. Our relationship has both legal and moral structure and is based on the sovereignty of the tribal nations and our formal government to government relationship with each.

I’m excited to announce that Jody Becker will be joining us as Deputy Secretary of Programs for Children and Families. She’ll start on March 16th. She has a long work history and series of successes in supporting families and children, including receiving the Governor’s Award for Leadership and Management in 2015. I am particularly excited about this part of her official bio:

As you can see, decisions and announcements are coming out more frequently as we get nearer to July 1 and are closer to having all of our ducks in a row. Today I am making some announcements about more high-level management appointments — others will follow in the coming weeks.

Over the past few months, I’ve visited a number of Children’s Administration offices while on my tour of the new DCYF offices. Two chronic problems the agency faces have become clear to me during these visits — high turnover among caseworkers and a severe shortage of foster homes.

In doing big projects like the DCYF creation there are tasks that have crazy deadlines (getting a payment system in place, payroll, filing new rules on time, etc.) and tasks that are often more important, but don’t have the same emergent time deadlines. It’s easy to let the latter linger.

We are excited to announce additional leadership hires for DCYF.