A beleaguered state official who’s faced a swirl of criticism over his leadership at Washington’s Department of Children, Youth and Families won’t seek reappointment, he announced this week.
Ross Hunter, who has served for seven years as secretary of the department that oversees the state’s child welfare, juvenile rehabilitation and foster care systems, said as recently as September that he had no plans to step down from his role.
He sent a video message to staff Wednesday notifying them about his departure. In a phone interview Thursday, Hunter characterized his decision as in line with what’s typical of agency heads when a new governor takes office.
“This is a time of transition. … It’s really been a blessing to be able to do this work,” Hunter said. He has no specific plans for after he leaves his post, he added.
Most of the state’s executive leaders are beginning to arrange their next steps “as everyone prepares for a new administration,” said Mike Faulk, spokesperson for Gov. Jay Inslee’s office. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, and Dave Reichert, a Republican and former U.S. representative and King County sheriff, are vying for the gubernatorial seat.
Hunter, 63, is a former Microsoft executive and state lawmaker. His approach to the state’s child welfare and juvenile rehabilitation systems — which has centered on cutting the number of kids in foster care and dealing with overcrowding at juvenile detention centers — won praise from some and drew scathing criticism from others.
In July, he suspended new admissions at two crowded juvenile detention centers, including Green Hill School in Chehalis, which has faced a crush of demand and an escalation in violence over the past year. Conditions were so bad that some teens and young men housed there were kept in their rooms for 22 hours a day without access to therapy or bathrooms. Following a court order, Hunter later reversed his decision.
A few years ago, the agency stopped accepting child abandonment referrals from hospitals where kids were stuck in windowless emergency departments for days or weeks at a time. The move strained the medical system’s ability to discharge youth in psychiatric crises to care better suited to their needs.
And Hunter inherited other challenges, like the state’s practice of sending youth with complex needs out of state or to hotels or offices instead of finding them stable, long-term homes. Disability Rights Washington sued and settled with DCYF over the practice in 2022.
“The systemic, 30,000-foot view here is prevention. We’d like to see services that keep families together and prevent them from even entering into the child welfare system,” said Sarah Eaton, director of Disability Rights Washington’s Community Inclusion and Services Program. On what she expects from the agency’s next secretary: “We need a visionary leader who is going to put children first.”
Hunter made prevention a focal point during his tenure by pushing policies aimed at slashing the number of youth in the state’s custody. But some didn’t think he went far enough.
A handful of state lawmakers and leaders of a union representing thousands of DCYF workers have been so incensed by Hunter’s leadership that they’ve called for his removal.
Under Hunter, “There’s a culture of not listening to the boots on the ground who are doing the work and taking that feedback,” said Jeanette Obelcz, chair of the Washington Federation of State Employees’ DCYF policy committee. She wasn’t surprised to hear Hunter’s plans to move on. “It’s a situation of quitting before you can be let go.”
On Thursday, Hunter said he’s most proud of the “kin-first” culture he prioritized at DCYF, which emphasizes placing youth removed from their parents with family caregivers. Kinship placements rose from 46% in 2017 to nearly 60% in 2024, according to agency estimates.
He’s also starting to reflect on what he could have done differently.
“I certainly have a lot of personal things that I could have done better,” he said. “I’ve never managed 5,000 people before.”
