Arizona's Child Safety Changes Signed into Law

As Gov. Jan Brewer and lawmakers celebrated creation of a new state agency to protect children, national child-welfare experts said that the early steps look promising but that it will be months before officials know if they have truly fixed a system that failed to investigate thousands of reports of child abuse and neglect in recent years.

 

Experts cautioned that success will depend on leadership that is committed to changing how caseworkers interact with families, as well as a healthy dose of patience. In other words, the fate of the state's new Department of Child Safety hinges more on how the agency is run than the 200-plus pages of statutory changes signed into law by Brewer on Thursday.

 

"The important issue is what will the people who work there do in how they relate to families," said Paul Vincent, director of Child Welfare Policy, an Alabama-based non-profit organization that offers technical assistance on child-welfare issues. "It's hard to legislate how you work with families."