It will be “quite a while” before Floridians know whether Florida's Department of Children and Families is headed in the right direction, editorials in the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun Sentinel say. DCF has a new interim leader, and more money and resources and staffing courtesy of the Florida Legislature, but until changes are made, these actions only offer hope, the editorial boards wrote.
The DCF is charged with protecting children from harm, but the department’s behavior is outrageous, Fabiola Santigo writes in the Miami Herald.
DCF continues to hide evidence that children are dying under the agency’s watch, even after the Herald exposed the deaths of 477 children on DCF’s radar, she wrote. State leaders should hold the agency accountable, but even some of them have a “track record” of withholding public records, Santiago wrote.