Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, Marketa Garner Walters, faces the press after another child overdose death. November 7, 2022. Photo by Brooke Thorington.
The Department of Children and Family Services is under fire again after news of another infant fentanyl overdose death. Days before one-year-old J’ahrei Paul of Baton Rouge’s Halloween death, the agency received an anonymous report he was in possible danger. Secretary Marketa Garner Walters was asked by reporters why they waited until Saturday to issue a press release.
“I’m not going to speak to you until I know that I have all the facts at my disposal, that I can say when I can say them,” said Walters.
Walters said ongoing staffing shortages and a 32% increase in child welfare cases in the last six months in the Baton Rouge area alone, are among the reasons this case fell through the cracks. After telling a Senate Health and Welfare Committee in September the agency had a fail-safe program in place, following the June death of a two-year-old who died of a fentanyl overdose death, Walters said one person will now oversee the assignment of child welfare cases.
“To make sure that they are being assigned quickly, and appropriately to the right level of response,” said Walters. At the September committee meeting, DCFS presented a seven-step plan to improve the agency’s response to child welfare cases which included the hiring of more caseworkers after the agency experienced a recent decline of approximately 500 employees. New Orleans Representative Jason Hughes has been extremely critical of Secretary Walters and continues to call for her resignation. Walters said she has no plans to leave her post.
“I serve at the pleasure of the governor and as long as the governor and I are in lockstep about this I will be right here,” said Walters.
DCFS is holding hiring fairs in an effort to increase the number of employees to handle the ever-growing child welfare caseload.
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