State Human Services Secretary Val Arkoosh impressed by Butler County Children & Youth Services
After meeting with county officials Monday, Oct. 5, Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Secretary Val Arkoosh said she hopes to take some of what she learned from Butler County Children & Youth Services and use it as a model for other counties.
“I wanted to get ideas from them about how they’re doing this work because we have 67 counties in the commonwealth and every county is a bit different,” she said. “Some have more resources than others, some have really strong partnerships with community-based organizations.
“We’re gathering lots of ideas so we can share them across the state so that county children and youth agencies don’t have to invent this idea out of nothing every single time.”
She said she was impressed by the Butler County agency’s focus on prevention.
“They have managed to put some very innovative programs in place around housing families that have a real, acute need for housing. Right there, you can imagine a parent with young children and nowhere to stay can lead to a child welfare report,” she said.
Out of everything the group discussed, Arkoosh said she was particularly inspired by the inroads the county has made with school districts and other community resources.
“If you’re a school guidance counselor, chances are you’re pretty busy. If they talk to a student who needs support — maybe that family’s struggling a bit and the student could use some help accessing food resources or clothing resources for instance. Rather than the guidance counselor trying to solve that particular problem, they can call a community-based group nearby that can take it from there,” she said.
She said part of the reason she visited had to do with a $50 million funding increase for county children and youth agencies in the state’s 2026-27 budget.
“The governor was really focused on making sure that these county children and youth agencies had what they needed to do their work,” she said.
Charlie Johns, executive director of the county children and youth services agency, said those funds can be used to support cases that look to go over budget.
“We talked about the increasing cost of placement,” he said about the meeting. “Sometimes, that actually could get us to go over budget. That money would be there if we were to exceed our amount, which we typically do not do. But it’s important to know it’s there if we do need it.”
Arkoosh said she hopes the funding can be used for more preventive work like what the county’s agency is doing, as well as developing steps for after the agency’s involvement.
“Families don’t love it. It’s not easy to exit and we want to make all of that better,” she said. “When a family is involve with child welfare, we want to make sure once they’re stabilized, there is a clear path for them to step away from it.”
She said her goal will always be to support county agencies rather than tell them how they should run themselves.
“We’re not sitting in Harrisburg telling people what to do. We want to be out here and hear from the people on the ground doing the work and figure out how we can make their work a little bit easier,” she said.
