The inaugural director of the Ohio Department of Children and Youth (DCY) believes her team has a good story to tell as it returns to lawmakers for funding two years after they agreed to meld it together from the early childhood-focused program areas of several cabinet agencies. 

“We’ve seen some benefits from being under one roof. One key example was last year about this time, we had early childhood education slots that were open,” DCY Director Kara Wente told Hannah News in a phone interview. 

“Last January, when we got our enrollment numbers, we were able to look at where our slots were and where we had kids in children’s services who were also 3 and 4 [years old],” she said. “Within about 48 hours, two business days, we were able to make the connection to our county directors, and as a result 150 3- and 4-year-olds were enrolled in early education.” 

The General Assembly in 2023 agreed to Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposal to create DCY, which was meant to bring a dedicated focus to the wellbeing of children from birth through age 5 and create smoother operations than when all the programs serving those kids were spread across multiple cabinet departments. Wente got the nod to lead DCY after serving as head of children’s initiatives for DeWine. 

Under 135-HB33 (Edwards), DCY was given 18 months, until the start of this year, to formally assume control of all those programs. 

On an operational level, Wente said DCY met its mandate to assume responsibility of its assigned duties about a year early, at the outset of 2024, thanks to cooperation of the various “legacy agencies” from which DCY drew its programs. The funding streams mostly migrated to DCY at the following turn of the fiscal year, and Ohio Administrative Code regulations moved under the DCY nameplate in January of this year. 

DCY maintains reliance on some other agencies for practical reasons. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) already makes allocation payments to counties on behalf of the Ohio Department of Medicaid, so it makes sense to bundle DCY’s payments through ODJFS as well, Wente said. “We will always partner with JFS on that,” she said. 

The department has posted annual reports on various programs from FY23 and FY24 and published a dashboard of key metrics, like the number of children in foster care, signed up for home visiting or served through publicly funded child care. They can be found HERE. Wente said a lawmaker advised her to begin pulling together data immediately so DCY could make the argument that its creation was the right move. 

“We’re really going to lean into the data,” Wente said. 

“We use the data to set goals for the next two years, three primary goals” which are to reduce infant mortality, to increase the number of children who are kindergarten ready and to reduce the number of children coming into the children’s services system. 

Recent initiatives in those areas include expanding an infant mortality reduction model now at work in Hamilton County to other communities and creating the new voucher program for child care to serve families up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. 

Wente said creation of DCY is easing access to programs and assistance for families, who can request help and be directed to the right place without necessarily needing to know what program or which department to approach. In the fall, DCY and vendor Bright Beginnings rolled out the Sparkler app to help families understand developmental stages through age 5 and direct them to resources and programs. 

“The reason I say that’s such a big deal is in the first five and a half weeks that app launched, we served more families in five and a half weeks than we did the entire prior year,” Wente said. 

Thank you, Groundwork Ohio, for featuring Dana Mayer, DCY Manager of Maternal and Infant Clinical Initiatives, in honor of Maternal Health Awareness Day and highlighting the importance of listening to mothers and addressing the root causes of maternal mortality. 

Ohio is proving to be a leader in bringing together services that focus on children and families. And other states are taking note and learning from those who made it happen.. Ohio has consolidated various children and family services into the new Department of Children and Youth (DCY), streamlining access to programs like child care licensing, state-funded preschool, early intervention, and maternal wellness. Under Governor Mike DeWine's initiative, these previously scattered services are now unified under one umbrella, simplifying resource navigation for families and strengthening Ohio's position to manage future federal investments in early childhood programs. 

This innovative approach was recently highlighted in a Center for American Progress article featuring DCY Assistant Director Jeff Van Deusen, who discussed how states are improving early childhood outcomes through consolidated governance structures. 

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