The appointee, Gladys Carrión, will head the Administration for Children’s Services, which investigates child neglect and abuse and oversees foster care.
Ms. Carrión, a Bronx native, has served for the past seven years as commissioner of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services. She also worked in Mayor David N. Dinkins’s administration as commissioner for the city’s community development agency.
In a news conference at a Lower East Side social services organization, Mr. de Blasio said he had known Ms. Carrión for two decades and called her a “change agent” and a reformer. She will focus on making sure the agency provides preventive services to protect vulnerable children, he said.
“She has devoted her whole life to our children,” Mr. de Blasio said, “and she understands from her own life story what it’s like for children to come up in humble circumstances and struggles, and understands how much it is our obligation to protect them all.”
Ms. Carrión will lead an agency that has faced considerable criticism over the years and was the subject of renewed scrutiny after the 2010 death of Marchella Pierce, a 4-year-old girl who was drugged, beaten and tied to a bed by her mother and grandmother despite being under the supervision of the agency. Last week, two former employees of the agency pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges relating to the girl’s death.
The former employees, Damon T. Adams, a caseworker with the agency, and Chereece M. Bell, a supervisor, reached an agreement with prosecutors after initially being indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide, a felony. The case led the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, to start a grand jury investigation into “evidence of alleged systemic failures” at the agency.
The grand jury released a report laying much of the blame for the deaths of Marchella and 18 other children since 2007 on the agency. The report said the agency needed to hire more workers, train them better and provide them with better resources and supervision.
Yahoo Local News – New York Times
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