Child Welfare Director Aprille Flint-Gerner announced Tuesday she was resigning after two years leading Oregon’s beleaguered child-welfare system.
Flint-Gerner’s last day is June 20. She accepted a position as a senior director of strategic consulting with Casey Family Programs, a national foundation that works with foster kids and families. Flint-Gerner earned about $225,900 annually working for the state.
The Oregon Department of Human Services building is pictured in Salem, Ore., on Sept. 26, 2019. Beleaguered and increasingly desperate child welfare workers trusted the private, for-profit Sequel Youth and Family Services with the state's most vulnerable children, despite allegations of abuse.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
She worked as the deputy director of equity, training and workforce development for the agency in 2020 before becoming the program’s director. During her tenure, the number of children in Oregon’s foster care system declined from a high of 7,908 in 2018 to 4,481 at the end of 2024, according to information from the state.
“It has been a great honor to serve the great state of Oregon in this capacity and through many challenges and successes,” she wrote in a letter to the director of the department, Fariborz Pakseresht.
Flint-Gerner succeeded Rebecca Jones Gaston, who also left after about two years to serve under the Biden administration as a commissioner for the Administration for Children, Youth and Families.
Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, a leading advocate of child welfare in the state Legislature who often acts as a watchdog over the state’s human services department, called Flint-Gerner a “smart, impactful leader.”
“She cares deeply about the work, the people that do the work and the children and adults she wakes up each day ready to serve,” Gelser Blouin said.
Rolanda Garcia, who has worked at the state’s Department of Human Services in various roles over nearly three decades, will replace Flint-Gerner on an interim basis.
Aprille Flint-Gerner is leaving her post as Oregon's child welfare director as of June.
Courtesy of the Department of Human Services
The state’s Department of Human Services settled a class-action lawsuit last year. As part of the lawsuit, an expert was appointed to oversee the foster care system and work to improve the child welfare system. The state has promised to reduce the rate of mistreatments and improve the quality of places where it sends children placed in foster care to live.
At the same time, the agency is also pushing for the state to ease some restrictions on where it sends kids placed in foster care. There is a bill currently under consideration this legislative session that would allow the state to send kids to treatment facilities in other states. Gov. Tina Kotek testified in support of the bill last week.
