9:3A-2 Findings, declarations relative to establishing Department of Children and Families.

2. The Legislature finds and declares that:

a. In 2003, New Jersey settled a class action lawsuit alleging that the State's child welfare system, which was primarily administered through the Division of Youth and Family Services in the Department of Human Services, failed to protect the State's most vulnerable children from child abuse and neglect. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, a New Jersey Child Welfare Panel was created to provide technical assistance to the State on child welfare issues in order to monitor the development and implementation of a State plan to reform New Jersey's child welfare system;

b. Although the State has committed substantial financial resources to the reform of the child welfare system between the date of the settlement agreement and 2005, the New Jersey Child Welfare Panel concluded that the department has not been able to demonstrate substantial progress in the implementation of the reform plan, and the Child Welfare Panel and other child advocates have concluded that children continue to remain at risk;

c. One of the concerns about the reform is that the child welfare system is administered through and is one of several large units within one of the largest agencies in State government, the Department of Human Services, which is responsible for so many of our State's vulnerable citizens. The department consists of approximately 22,000 employees and includes, in addition to the Division of Youth and Family Services: the Division of Medical Assistance and Health Services, which administers the State's Medicaid and NJ FamilyCare programs; the Division of Family Development, which administers the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and other public assistance programs; the Division of Developmental Disabilities, which provides services to developmentally disabled persons in the community and operates seven developmental centers; the Division of Mental Health Services, which provides services to persons with mental illness in the community and operates five psychiatric hospitals; the Division of Addiction Services, which administers the State's substance abuse programs; the Division of Disability Services, which provides various services to disabled adults; and the Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Division of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, which are responsible for providing services to persons who are blind or visually impaired and persons with hearing impairments, respectively; and

d. In order to facilitate aggressive reform of the child welfare system and ensure that the reform effort is successful, it is, therefore, in the best interest of the citizens of this State to establish a principal department within the Executive Branch that focuses exclusively on protecting children and strengthening families, so that our State's children will have the optimum conditions in which to grow and prosper to the benefit of themselves, their families, and society as a whole. The department shall have the goal of ensuring safety, permanency, and well-being for all children, and shall have direct responsibility for child welfare and other children and family services, supported by strong inter-agency partnerships among other State departments also responsible for family services.

L.2006, c.47, s.2.