Last week, Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson named state Rep. Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island, as secretary of the Department of Children, Youth and Families.

Senn will be the department's second head since its creation in 2017.

The department's current leader, Ross Hunter, has faced calls to resign from DCYF employees and some of Senn's colleagues in the Legislature over his handling of child welfare and juvenile rehabilitation issues.

DCYF also licenses early learning facilities and distributes public funds to providers who care for and educate thousands of children through state-supported child care and preschool programs.

Senn has represented the 41st legislative district since 2013 and has served as chair of the House's policy committee on early learning and human services since 2019.

She helped write the Fair Start for Kids Act, a 2021 policy requiring the state to expand access to early learning and child care programs for more Washington kids.

In a statement, Ferguson called Senn "a well-respected, innovative leader on issues related to supporting Washington children and families."

The Seattle Times spoke to Senn over the phone Friday about her new job and her future work on early childhood education and child care. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You're moving from the Legislature — where you're creating early learning policy and finding money for it — to lead a state agency, where you'll put that policy into action. How does that change the work you can do to advance early learning?

We have a unique opportunity right now, with a tough budget situation, and no anticipated additional dollars from the federal government, and so I think the biggest impact can be implementing things better and improving systems and improving communications to get the word out about the benefits we already have. It's kind of a time to focus on that, to focus on making our great programs (into) fabulous programs.

You mentioned the budget situation. Outgoing Gov. Jay Inslee has proposed raising provider pay while delaying some planned expansions to child care and preschool programs in Fair Start for Kids. What's your take on his proposal?

Whenever we have plans for growth, if we don't have a strong foundation, then we're building efforts on a wobbly start. And so I think the investments in the workforce and in subsidy rates (are) critical.

So I'm really happy to see him focus the dollars that he does have in his budget on solidifying and strengthening the base. Would I have liked to see increases in eligibility? Absolutely. But we know this is a starting point, (the) first salvo in the budget discussion, and hopefully, we can make some more investments. But there's (a) budget reality, and I operate in reality.

I've noticed that money seems to underlie many of our early learning system's challenges. Many providers deal with low pay. Many families are struggling to pay child care bills. Will your new job title mean you have less power to influence how legislators fund early learning?

... As part of Gov.-elect Ferguson's cabinet, I look forward to bringing forward decision packages on the best places to invest in child care and child welfare and juvenile justice and influencing the executive branch goals in their budget development ... Whether I'm in the Legislature or as DCYF Secretary, I will work to continue to really talk about the "why" of the importance of early learning and hope that that carries weight in the decision-making.

Tell me your pitch. What's the why?

... We need kids to be ready for kindergarten, we need to make sure that parents can go to work and we need to have a strong place where kids can start developing into the next generation of workforce, with all the social-emotional learning and executive function skills that the modern economy needs.

What have been your takeaways from any conversations you've had about early learning with incoming Gov. Bob Ferguson?

He, as you know, traveled and went to all 39 counties, I think almost all of them twice. And he often talks about how child care and housing were consistently the two biggest topics that came up. And that's heartening and disheartening at the same time.

Again, I know because I've worked on this issue for so long that child care is so important. But it has often been overlooked by business people and by other issues, but it can't be ignored anymore. And I'm thrilled that the governor-elect has chosen child care as one of his key issues. And I look forward to working on that with him and helping him develop his road map for how to positively impact early learning.

I want to fast-forward to three months from now. What do you want to accomplish as DCYF director on early learning issues in that time? Has Ferguson laid out any short-term goals for you in this role?

He has asked me, as part of his transition team, to come up with recommendations for the first 100 days of his administration around child care. And we've had three community meetings about that and should have a document ready for him in early January.

What lessons have you learned from that community outreach?

... When the Working Families Tax Credit was started, they had a $10 million marketing budget. When Working Connections Child Care and the Fair Start for Kids Act were expanded, we had a zero-dollar marketing budget. So part of the goal is to get the word out about Working Connections Child Care through trusted channels ... That's a key piece of it.

What we know is that when child care providers are trying to open a child care, or remodel or restart, depending on your local jurisdiction ... there are differences in codes and policies and charges that aren't always necessary. And so pulling communities together ... to see if we can't streamline and figure out what is really necessary, and certainly what barriers might be holding the key, essential business of child care from being developed in that community.

As a legislator, you co-founded a caucus of parents. When and why did you create that group?

When I started in the Legislature, I was one of very few moms with kids in elementary school, and it was clear that that lived experience ... wasn't necessarily being reflected in the policies that people were bringing forward because people work on policies that impact their lives and that they are personally connected to.

And so I wanted to work on equal pay and child care and social-emotional learning and access to diapers and parental leave. And those were issues that I and my friends and my communities really saw as important.

Over time, we elected more moms and young parents, and there became a critical mass of people and wanted to bring those voices together to highlight and elevate those needs ... Maternity coverage, access to doulas, access to diapers, child care, any of those issues that really impacted moms and young families.

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