‘It’s time we do something big and bold’: Sen. Rosino pushes child welfare overhaul

I think we've talked a little bit on the podcast before about some of these issues.

You spend 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?

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, youngest people in the state of Oklahoma.

Many of them just need 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 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.

So the bill last year and then, you know, what we're going to talk about today is would.

move that the child welfare portion out of dhs and so it kind of you know it makes me think what why is the problem that child welfare is inside dhs rather than it being a problem with you know say leadership or staffing funding policy etc what can a new department do that dean dhs cannot or is not doing today

Yeah.

So that's a great question.

So 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 child care.

They have family support.

They have all these other programs.

And then you have child welfare, too.

Right.