Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey refocusing agency on foster family creation

PHOENIX– Gov. Doug Ducey is reorganizing a small executive agency to refocus its efforts on creating more foster families to house children removed
from their homes and to oversee government drug abuse and prevention actions.

The actions announced Wednesday are intended to engage the faith-based community in identifying families who will help provide homes for the more than
17,000 Arizona children now in state care. About half those children are placed
with relatives, but the other half are in foster or group homes.

Director Debbie Moak of the newly renamed Governor’s Office of Youth, Faith and
Families said she also intends to use the office to boost substance prevention
and rehabilitation efforts.

The goal is to cut the number of children removed from their homes because
their parents abuse drugs and to help reunite families by providing substance
abuse services to parents who have had their children removed.

Moak was appointed to head the office in
February and now will head the new agency, which will also include staff
assigned to the old Office of Faith and Community.

“The primary reason these youth end up in the system is because of their
parents’ substance abuse,” Moak said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“I too, like everyone else in the state, care about those 17,000 kids
greatly.”

“But I also equally care about those parents. So if we don’t address that
piece, all we’re going to do is delay bringing families, potential families,
back together, so we’re going to keep queuing up kids year after year.”

About 80 percent of the cases now handled by the Department of Child Safety are
classified as neglect, and many of those can be traced to drug abuse by their
parents.

Moak plans to survey state funding through various agencies on drug abuse and
prevention programs they currently oversee and create statewide oversight of
those programs. Merging the two operations also helps fulfill Ducey’s pledge to
make government run more like a business.

“I’m going to all the agencies, I’m sitting down with all the directors,” she
said. “I’m looking at what they’re funding, what I’m funding. As a business, we
would all know who’s being funded and for what, and what the overlaps are. The
state doesn’t know that currently, but they should.”

She hopes to have a fully crafted strategic plan within the next few months.

Moak’s office is primarily charged with directing grants and support to
nonprofits and other groups and councils focused on substance abuse and other
social issues.

Moak said she’s driven to tackle substance abuse issues. She has a son in
recovery and lost her sister to drug addiction two years ago and raised her son.

“I had a sister who died from addiction. I am an aunt raising one of those
children now because of addition. That piece has to change,” she said.