Rebecca Harris, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), told the joint House and Senate Health and Welfare committees on Oct. 13 in Covington that DCFS is shifting to a child-centered structure and implementing staffing, technology and quality-control changes intended to reduce backlog and improve outcomes.

Why it matters: Legislators pressed DCFS leaders for immediate answers about child fatality counts and prior agency involvement. The department reported this year’s fatality total and outlined steps intended to reduce delayed investigations, increase after-hours coverage and build data tools to spot high-risk patterns earlier.

Harris summarized structural changes that followed “Project 1 Door” legislation (Act 477/Act 478), noting that programs moved to other agencies and that, as of Oct. 1, DCFS retained 2,296 positions focused on child welfare. "We are now postured as a child centered department," Harris said, adding that DCFS issued a business plan built on eight components including staffing, technology, transparency and workforce retention.

Harris and assistants described steps the department was taking during the first weeks after the Oct. 1 reorganized start. Among the measures outlined:
- A second-shift child-protective team: Harris said 53 new second-shift staff were hired and were in training and job shadowing to respond to calls and investigations that occur evenings, weekends and holidays. Harris said the 53 staff are assigned across regions with a local-office presence rather than a single regional hub.
- Backlog and staffing: The department acknowledged a backlog that committee members characterized as roughly 3,700 overdue reports. Harris said DCFS would use second-shift staff, additional frontline hires and a new continuous-quality-improvement team to "burn down" the backlog while tightening supervisor accountability.
- Fatality figures: Rebecca Hook, DCFS medical director, told the committee, "we did have 39 fatalities in this calendar year. Of those, 25 had prior investigations that involved a case member," and reported that 14 of those prior investigations had been substantiated. Hook and Harris both said more detailed case-by-case information would be provided to the committee.

Harris also listed programmatic and technology steps intended to improve responsiveness and oversight: HomeReady, a foster-parent recruitment and training platform; an automation bot that sped State Central Registry clearances (average 6 days since Aug. 1, per the presentation); Project Sabre to digitize decades of paper records; and AI tools to analyze intake-call transcripts for sentiment and to flag victims with multiple related calls so supervisors can prioritize review.

Lawmakers repeatedly pressed for precise numbers and quicker access to data. Several members emphasized that any delay in investigations or in tribunal decisions can raise the risk of harm. Representative Carver asked Harris for a candid self-assessment; Harris answered, "I give us a C," and said the department was pursuing near-term fixes for centralized intake, staffing and training while pursuing longer-term changes to structure and technology.

DCFS said it would publish a dashboard of baseline metrics and quarterly progress measures; Harris said the dashboard draft was near completion and should be available to committee staff within about two weeks. Members asked for specific outcome measures — for example, reductions in repeat maltreatment within 12 months, timeliness of responses, foster-family retention and rates of reunification — and asked the department to include numeric baselines and quarterly targets on the dashboard.

No formal committee votes were taken. Legislators said they will monitor the department’s progress and follow up on dashboard metrics, the fatality review details, and the backlog burn-down plan.