A Promise Kept

Twenty-one years at any job is a long time, but at the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), it can sometimes feel like a lifetime.

Luckily, my DCFS life started out in Wraparound.

I was new to the game at the time, but we had a lot of wonderful guidance from people like Brad Norman, Gerry Rodriguez, Pat Miles, Neil Brown, John Franz , Karl Dennis, Jerry Doyle and many others. They were all so inspiring and modeled the “Wrap” energy and hope.

But my original inspiration came from Paul.

Early in my career, way before DCFS, I worked in a psychiatric facility with the chronically mentally ill. That is where I met Paul, who was much older and had such a gentle soul. He grew up in an orphanage in New York, and essentially never got to experience a family. He went from one institution to another, and eventually died in one.

I promised myself that I would do everything in my power to make sure no one ever had to experience that. 

So now, as the administrator of a DCFS regional office which just passed a benchmark of two months with zero children in a Short-Term Residential Therapeutic Program (STRTP), I feel I have kept my promise to Paul. 

How did we do it? A lot of hard work and an amazing team. But deeper down, structurally…the secret is that we have implemented the Wraparound principles into every aspect of our office. We live and breathe the principles with each other and with our families. Our approach has produced caseloads in the single digits, amazing outcomes, and families that are actually thanking us for helping. 

We must keep going, as we know there are still so many more opportunities to improve. The work is not done, but never in my 21 years of DCFS have I ever felt so fulfilled from and hopeful toward the work we do.