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It's been seven years since Gov. Jay Inslee tapped a former Microsoft executive and lawmaker to head an ambitious state startup — an agency that would integrate complex systems dealing with children and families. The mission, the governor said: prevent harm rather than just react to it.
Ross Hunter seemed like a natural pick. In fact, his likely leadership was the reason some lawmakers agreed to form the Department of Children, Youth and Families in the first place, according to state Rep. Tana Senn, a Mercer Island Democrat.
Hunter, a Democrat from Medina, made his mark in the Legislature working on bipartisan education reforms and heading House budget-writing in the wake of the Great Recession.
"People saw Ross as a businessman, someone who is going to bring accountability and data as well as passion to the department," Senn said.
But Hunter is now facing a firestorm due to his July decisions to suspend intakes at two crowded juvenile detention centers and transfer to an adult prison 43 young men who were sentenced as juveniles.
Hunter reversed both decisions after a stinging court order. Critics were not appeased.
Among those who have called for his removal are a state advisory group on juvenile justice, state Reps. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, and Mari Leavitt, D-University Place, and leaders of a union representing thousands of DCYF workers.
Some grievances have simmered for years, reaching beyond juvenile detention conditions to Hunter's leadership and his push toward big changes to the child-welfare system.
At the same time, those changes, which have deliberately slashed the number of children in Washington's foster care system in an effort to keep families together, have won praise from many child advocates.
So far, the governor seems inclined to stick with Hunter. DCYF is working hard to get more juvenile detention space, Inslee said in an interview during the recent Democratic National Convention in Chicago, adding: "It's not a moment to put things on ice for a six-month search for somebody."
Hunter, in an interview last week in DCYF's Seattle office, seeming calm after a week's vacation despite the furor around him, said he has no plans to step down. "I have work to do," he said, referring to the juvenile detention crisis and big-picture goals not yet accomplished.
Whether Hunter will survive as DCYF's head after voters elect a new governor in November is another question. Whoever succeeds Hunter, be it sooner or later, will have to grapple with his legacy and the lessons it holds.
"His own worst enemy"
From the beginning, DCYF has been tasked with a "heavy lift," said Patrick Dowd, director of the state Office of the Family and Children's Ombuds. The department oversees sprawling systems related to foster care, juvenile rehabilitation and early learning.
Some of Hunter's challenges predated DCYF's existence, Dowd said. Those include remedying the contentious practice of sending hard-to-place children to out-of-state facilities, or having them spend the night in hotels and offices. Other challenges, Dowd added, were unforeseeable: the fentanyl crisis, COVID-19.
Despite the difficulties, Ruth Kagi, a former Seattle Democratic lawmaker who spearheaded the bill creating DCYF and a member of the agency's oversight board, said she believes Hunter has thoughtfully implemented the department's mission.
"His driving force is better outcomes for children and youth, and always has been," Kagi said.
Still, she acknowledged, Hunter can be "his own worst enemy." Opinionated and forceful, "he has a laser focus on something and just kind of moves forward regardless of what the fallout might be," she said.
His handling of juvenile detention centers is a case in point.
There is no question Hunter faces an enormous predicament. As he and his staff explained at an oversight board meeting last week, DCYF is receiving more youths into its detention facilities while at the same time being asked to hold them far longer.
This is due to two factors, according to DCYF. A 30-year downturn in youth violence reversed during the pandemic, leading to more arrests and sentencings. And lawmakers, citing research showing young people's brains develop into their 20s, passed laws five and six years ago allowing people who commit crimes when they are younger than 18 to serve sentences in juvenile facilities until they turn 25.
Green Hill School in Chehalis, serving young men 17 and older, got squeezed the hardest. It saw a 60% increase in intakes between January 2023 and this past July. The facility's population climbed above 180, the level DCYF considers safe, in June 2023. It rose as high as 245 in late May.
Soon, young men there would be sleeping on the floor, Hunter told the oversight board last week. The cramped conditions prompted escalating aggressive incidents. "It just became much, much more dangerous," he said. Hence the transfers and intake suspensions.
Furious county officials, responsible for the men no longer accepted by the department, said they were given no notice. They sued.
Hunter has acknowledged a lack of communication. It's a chronic problem, illustrated even at last week's oversight board meeting. After DCYF's presentation, anguished parents of young men at Green Hill spoke.
Rashida Robbins said she hears from her son that he's hungry, that staff are abusive, that he's kept in his room 22 hours a day without therapy or access to the bathroom. "That facility is in need of emergency intervention right now," she said.
"It's terrible," Hunter agreed the following day when interviewed. He said crowding and staff shortages mean residents can't move safely around the campus. "It has to get better."
Hunter didn't say that to Robbins, though, because by the time she and other parents spoke, he was gone. He had another meeting to go to, he later said.
A culture change
The Washington Federation of State Employees last summer held a no-confidence vote on Hunter's leadership. It ultimately failed. But the union's list of grievances reflected alarming working conditions across the agency.
It noted "significant safety concerns including youth using drugs, staff being bit, a staff member having their eye permanently damaged from being hit, and other assaults."
"We have tried to collaborate with Mr. Hunter but have been met with ignorance about the work we do and indifference to the issues we raise," the union document lamented.
"He doesn't listen to his workforce," elaborated Jeanette Obelcz, the union's chair of the DCYF policy committee, in a recent interview.
If he did, she said, he would not have gone along with proposed legislative changes dramatically affecting the agency's work — at least not without insisting upon more resources. One example, she said, is a recent law raising the judicial threshold for ordering children removed from their parents.
"I'm not saying it's wrong," Obelcz said. "But it does mean those [request for removal] petitions take two or three times as long to write." That's because they require detailed evidence of "imminent physical harm." For the same reason, court hearings on the matter take up much more time, she said. Case workers are stretched thin.
Hunter talks about his staff in appreciative terms. "My job is hard," he said, noting the complicated systems he's trying to improve. "Their job is hard here," he said, pointing to his heart. "I could not be a social worker." Things were especially tough during the pandemic when vacancies and stress soared, he continued. The pay is not enough.
Kagi, the former legislator, said Hunter fights for his staff and has "absolutely gone to war" with the state Office of Financial Management to get more resources for them.
OFM Director David Schumacher, who sifts through agency requests and helps the governor draw up a budget proposal to the Legislature, confirmed Hunter has aggressively argued for more money. "He has called me a number of times to justify his requests," Schumacher said, noting that's not the norm among agency directors.
That doesn't mean he gets everything he asks for, Schumacher added.
As to why many staffers perceive Hunter isn't on their side, Kagi surmised it's because he doesn't communicate well with them.
It's hard to know how much staff unhappiness stems from that communication problem, how much is from challenges that come with working through big policy changes and how much is from disagreement with those changes.
Hunter has wanted and, as he tells it, achieved a culture change, especially on the child-welfare side of the house. He said he has moved the agency toward "being supportive of families rather than being a cop."
Focus draws praise, but is there oversight?
Critics of the child welfare system in Washington have long pointed to harms that come from separating kids from their parents, and have said the reasons for doing so, like lack of access to decent housing and reliable child care, often relate to poverty. Black and Native American families have been disproportionately affected.
Hunter generally agrees, and talks passionately about the history of racism in the child-welfare system. Reducing the number of children in foster care has been a major focus of his.
The department in August announced the number of foster children has fallen by almost half since DCYF began, from 9,171 to 4,971.
When it does separate children from their parents, it has increased efforts to place them with extended family members. More than half of foster children, 57%, now live with relatives or people so close to the family they are essentially considered kin.
Shrounda Selivanoff, who leads an advocacy coalition, praised DCYF's new approach. "It's wonderful to see a state agency working harder at keeping families together," she said.
Yet, some have raised safety concerns about the shift. They worry families left intact are not getting the help they need, or that foster children are being returned too quickly to parents ill-equipped to care for them.
One might think the oversight board would dig into questions like these and provide accountability. Not exactly.
The board, whose members are appointed by the governor, has 12 members and eight vacancies. At one point, it didn't meet for year.
Asked about the board's role, Senn, who sits on it, said: "It is not totally clear." Reviewing performance measures and making recommendations is part of it, she said, while acknowledging the board has no authority over what DCYF does.
That's not necessarily a problem, Senn said. Most state agencies don't have oversight boards, and a legislative committee she chairs dealing with youth, human services and early learning has the authority the board lacks, she reasoned, while noting the Legislature isn't always in session.
State Rep. Tom Dent, a Moses Lake Republican who also sits on the board, disagrees. "Are we just coming together and listening?" he asked skeptically. "I think we need to provide oversight and ask those tougher questions."
There's a lot to monitor going forward.
DCYF has to solve its juvenile detention crisis. That means a redesign, Hunter said, because more space is needed and the population's needs are changing as it skews older due to the new laws. Currently, 57% are 18 or older.
"Are we willing to have a system that provides the resources necessary to serve those kids in a safe and therapeutic way?" Hunter asked. He said he intends to work with lawmakers to figure how to do so, and spoke admiringly of a model encompassing small facilities spread throughout the state to keep kids close to their communities.
At the same time, DCYF is moving ahead with other changes in child welfare. A 2022 legal settlement over the agency's use of hotels, offices and out-of-town facilities — already reduced — commits the agency to developing alternative housing and more supports for children with disabilities.
And the agency is implementing a major expansion in eligibility for child care and preschool subsidies.
All the while, DCYF's prevention mission needs more work, Hunter acknowledged. He, like many advocates, say there's a tension in suggesting to families they seek help from an agency with the power to take their kids away.
Hunter said community organizations are often a better resource. Unlike them, however, the department can access federal funding for preventing children from going into foster care. He envisions DCYF setting up some kind of referral system.
Whether Hunter remains the agency's head when the new governor takes over or not, Senn said the change in regime will be a time to assess DCYF anew — no more rationales about it needing to get up and running or struggling with the effects of the pandemic.
The honeymoon period, she said, will be over.
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