WonkCast #32: Why Custody for Care Continues

WonkCast #32: Why Custody for Care Continues

Episode # 32: Oklahoma Child Welfare Director Michael Williams Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. Five percent of children entering foster care nationally do so not from abuse or neglect, but because it’s the only way to unlock Medicaid financing for behavioral health care [https://www.childwelfarewonk.com/i/194029653/mental-healths-shadow-ticket-when-the-cost-of-care-is-custody]. Custody for care is not a quirk or conspiracy. Instead, that datapoint reflects the distortions of tacitly designing child welfare policy as a backstop system of last resort. It also captures key tensions constraining child welfare leaders: * What’s the appropriate role of data in decision-making, especially when it inherently collapses complexity? * Where’s the boundary line between insufficient accountability controls and ineffective process theater? * How can states upgrade their partnerships with the federal government amid simultaneously declining investment and rising expectations? Today’s guest makes decisions shaped by these constraints every day. Michael Williams currently serves as Oklahoma’s Child Welfare Director, and previously was Deputy Commissioner of Operations for Connecticut’s child welfare agency. We talked about why Oklahoma was the first state to join the Administration for Children and Families’ A Home for Every Child initiative, and why he takes the approach of data informing and influencing decisions, rather than driving them. If you wonder why a policy like custody for care persists when everyone involved decries its poor outcomes and clear cost inefficiency, this is a look behind the curtain. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com [https://www.childwelfarewonk.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

WonkCast #31: What Keeps Popular Ideas from Becoming Policy?

Episode # 31: Michelle Feit Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. There is often a significant gap between the way issues poll with the general public and how they move through policy-making institutions. That often gets vaguely characterized as “political will”, obscuring its origins. Child and family policy has many high-salience issues that are popular in general and encounter friction in moving through the legislative process. The finite resource that matters is political capacity; the coalition power required to simultaneously align on a workable policy design and assemble the votes to move it. Paid leave is emblematic of this dynamic, and we’re going to be exploring perspectives from an array of thinkers grappling with those questions of coalition and policy strategy. Today’s guest has led advocacy campaigns on paid leave at every level of government, from a successful initiative in DC to a federal proposal that came quite close in 2021. Michelle Feit [https://nationalpartnership.org/member/feit-michelle/] is the Director of Congressional Relations for Economic Justice at the National Partnership for Women and Families, where she leads paid leave campaigns. She previously worked on the Hill for Representative Jackie Speier and Senator Barbara Mikulski. We talked about how unified government constrains coalitions, the tension between state and national policy development, and how family policy moves through Congress. Amid cross-partisan deliberation over what comes next in child and family policy, this is a window into why popular ideas often struggle to become durable national policies. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com [https://www.childwelfarewonk.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

WonkCast #30: The Wrong Pockets Problem

Episode # 30: Erinn Kelley-Siel Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. Our laws and funding task the same agency with removing children from families when there’s a safety risk, and helping those same families avoid crisis and heal. Today’s guest says that asking one agency to hold both is a fundamental problem. Erinn Kelley-Siel Spent over thirteen years in public service leadership in the state of Oregon, including four as Director of the Oregon Department of Human Services. In 2016 she joined Friends of the Children [https://friendsofthechildren.org], serving as Chief Officer of Strategy & Innovation to scale a long-term professional mentorship model for children who have experienced multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences before kindergarten. She reframes that safety and support tension into shared partnership, with government leading on safety and community supporting families through durable relationships. We talked about how this tension shapes the way leaders make decisions, and how the wrong pockets problem complicates sustainable financing. These fundamental questions of accountability, governance, and funding are essential for anyone interested in shaping what comes next. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com [https://www.childwelfarewonk.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

WonkCast #29: What if it Worked?

Episode # 29: Rebecca Robuck Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. Child welfare policy often swings between two possible answers to the system’s purpose: protecting children or supporting families. Even efforts to move beyond that debate can end up recreating it as an argument over whether to reform the system or replace it altogether. Today’s guest is someone who refuses to collapse that complexity. Rebecca Robuck is a Partner at ChildFocus Partners [https://www.childfocuspartners.com/bios/rebecca-robuck], and the Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child and Family Well-Being [https://www.nccfwb.org]. As a leading national policy expert, she leads coalition advocacy and advises national organizations on what’s happening and what’s possible in child welfare policy. We talk about why innovation happening on the ground doesn’t always reach national conversations, the role of coalitions in reshaping federal policy, and what’s next in child and family policy. At its core, our conversation is about what we lose when policy debates don’t surface foundational questions like what a system like child welfare is actually for. For anyone feeling overwhelmed by current policy volatility, this captures why an era of disruption and uncertainty also offers opportunities for re-imagining what’s possible. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com [https://www.childwelfarewonk.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

WonkCast #28: Innovating Amid Aversion to Risk

Episode # 28: Kristi Putnam Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. It’s often the case that our policy patchwork asks families to fit programs [https://www.childwelfarewonk.com/i/197128530/from-the-founders-desk], rather than fitting programs to families. That fragmentation extends to how we hold public sector systems and leaders accountable, optimizing for avoidance of visible failure even at the cost of coherence. Today’s guest spends a lot of time thinking about and teaching principles for public sector leadership to promote policy innovation. Kristi Putnam has over 25 years of experience working on child and family policy across human Services, early childhood, health policy, and workforce development. Most recently, she was Secretary of the Arkansas Department of Human Services under Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders from January 2023 to July 2025. She also held leadership roles in the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and the Florida Department of Children and Families. Today, she’s the Dean of the Human Flourishing Academy [https://humanflourishingacademy.us], which recruits, trains, and deploys professionals passionate about policy into public sector leadership. We talked about what blocks or unlocks policy innovation, how family policy systems consider and balance risk, and the tension between state responsibility and family autonomy. We also talked about how her thinking about policy innovation evolved after overseeing the first significant rollout of Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas. I walked away with a deeper understanding of how agency leaders reason under constraint, and I am sure you will too. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com [https://www.childwelfarewonk.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]