When child welfare system fails, that's going to make headlines

In other words, those many DHS employees who do their jobs.

He'd rather the newspaper not tell the public about child welfare workers who have shirked their responsibilities and as a result put children in harm's way. Or about those who have stolen gift cards meant for foster children, or stolen from elderly DHS clients, or abused children in shelters.

Reporting on these things, as The Oklahoman did Sunday, is being done “in order to further their agenda against the agency,” Zearley says in a news release. Well.

Zearley apparently would have preferred that nothing was said or written about the many children who've died in the DHS system in the past few years. Children like Aja Johnson and Kelsey Smith-Briggs and Serenity Deal. They died at the hands of family members. Had DHS employees handled their cases differently somewhere along the line, they might be alive today.

Instead there was considerable reporting about these children and others; as a result, lawsuits were filed and elected officials took notice. Changes were made to the board that governs DHS. More changes are being proposed. State Rep. Richard Morrissette, D-Oklahoma City, says this is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to make some serious changes” to DHS. “We need to streamline it, make it more efficient, mean and lean so it serves its mission statement.”