OKLAHOMA STATE SENATE / From the desk of Sen. Jessica Garvin
One of our greatest responsibilities as legislators is to protect our most vulnerable citizens, including our children. Ten years ago, Oklahoma implemented the Pinnacle Plan to reform our child welfare system as part of a class action lawsuit settlement. This March, it was announced that Oklahoma Human Services had achieved substantial and sustained progress and didn’t require further monitoring, but the agency remained committed to achieving positive momentum.
Therefore, Governor Stitt formed the 12-member Child Welfare Task Force, which I proudly served on, to further improve conditions and outcomes for our state’s foster children. For six months, we focused on how to continue reducing the time to permanency in the system; reducing the number of re-entries after discharge to permanency; identifying risk factors leading to children’s removal from their biological parents’ home; and identifying and proposing areas of support for biological parents. We visited with hundreds of experts statewide, including both public and private foster care and adoption specialists, Child Protective Services employees, and others.
