State revokes Blair County children, youth license for not meeting minimum standards

BLAIR COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ) — Officials are appealing after the state revoked Blair County Children, Youth and Families (BCCYF) provisional license for allegedly failing to meet minimum standards.

According to the PA Department of Human Services (DHS), BCCYF failed to follow policy , file proper documents, and even failed to do the needed checks on homes where children were being placed. The inspection of random cases has led to BCCYF losing its fourth provisional license, which is the final provisional allowed by law.

Blair County Commissioner Laura Burke says several of the issues that BCCYF has had can be attributed to staffing shortages.

“We have come up from our low point of five case workers to I believe 14 full-time and four part-time,” Burke said. “We hope to continue to see improvement in our numbers, which have been improving steadily. We have reached 10 weeks with no late CPS outcomes. That was a big improvement.”

BCCYF and DHS are now working on an agreement to develop a long-term plan to improve operations. During the appeal, Blair County will remain responsible for reports of child abuse and neglect and will intervene, when necessary, to support families and protect children.

“Blair County and the Department of Human Services are working closely together as partners in this process, and this procedural step is necessary to allow us to move to the next phase in improving the services we are providing to the residents of this County,” Commissioner David Kessling, Chairman of the Blair County Board of Commissioners said.

Burke says that although the license has been revoked nothing should change for the BCCYF staff, as Blair County is still responsible for responding to cases.

“Everything is staying the same as far as our staffing and employees are concerned in their day-to-day,” Burke said. “This is really something we’re working through with the central region office and our partners at DHS. “It’s simply a matter of we ran out of time. They are six-month periods and this is the next step.”

In December 2023, a state operations manager was appointed to BCCYF due to a large number of overdue investigations into reports of possible abuse and neglect. DHS said that afterward, the county made progress on improving investigation processes and timeliness.

DHS said that BCCYF has undergone a significant restructuring of its intake functions and hired part-time staff to assist in working through the backlog of overdue cases.

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In May 2022, DHS issued a first provisional license to BCCYF following multiple violations documented over 12 months in the areas of assessing child safety, timeliness, supervisory oversight and conducting thorough assessments. A second provisional license was issued in November 2022 and a third in May 2023. The fourth and final provisional license was issued on Nov. 15, 2023, and expired Sunday, May 5.

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