Derek Schmidt needs to be held accountable for his role in past Kansas DCF woes

Derek Schmidt’s recent comments about the Department of Children and Families are far removed from reality — and the truth. Like with everything else, Sam Brownback left DCF in shambles. Under his watch, the agency was severely underfunded, case workers without appropriate licensing were hired to address staff shortages, and the number of children in the foster care system soared.

Under Brownback, what was Derek Schmidt’s role? Defending Brownback in some of the most tragic cases of abuse in our state’s history, including the death of an 18-month old. Schmidt’s argument: DCF “owed no ... duty to protect” the baby, and that “the death of any child is always a tragedy, whether it is preventable or not. But child welfare agencies are not guarantors of the safety of endangered children.”

Let that sink in.

Schmidt is now running for governor, despite his track record of defending Brownback’s failures in court, and is trying to go after Gov. Laura Kelly’s track record, despite her progress fixing the broken system she inherited from Brownback and Schmidt.

After years of debate and back and forth, Gov. Kelly brought both parties together and took action. She worked across the aisle to establish the Division of the Child Advocate to provide independent oversight and accountability over the system that previously failed so many of our children and families.

In 2021, Gov. Kelly signed “Adrian’s Law,” which requires visual observation of an alleged victim of child abuse or neglect as part of an investigaion to ensure that child abuse does not go undetected, and established the Joint Committee on Child Welfare System Oversight.

She’s hired qualified, competent people to lead our state agencies — not her political allies like Brownback used to do. Gov. Kelly has rebuilt the state foster care system, recruiting new social workers and bringing in millions of dollars in new federal resources to clean up the mess left by Brownback and Schmidt.

Since taking office, she’s decreased the number of children in foster care by over 15%. That’s 1,000 fewer kids in the system. That’s a huge deal.

In 2018, Laura Kelly promised to do something about this unacceptable failure of leadership that left our children behind. And after four years as governor, she’s done exactly that.

Schmidt’s latest comments are nothing more than an attempt to rewrite history and shift blame onto Gov. Kelly, a pattern for Schmidt as he tries to hide from his harmful track record.

Sarah Coats is a licensed social worker in Kansas, practicing since 2009. She has worked for two foster care contractors for nearly seven years, and was the "DCF Whistleblower" that called attention to the problems with the backlog of child abuse reports amongst a host of other issues. She served on the working groups for the Child Welfare Task Force.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Derek Schmidt's defense of Sam Brownback policies wounded Kansas DCF