Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday announced the creation of the New York City Children’s Cabinet, a multi-agency initiative to bolster communication among city agencies and develop strategies for a holistic approach to a child’s safety and well-being. The plan to assemble a Children’s Cabinet came after the tragic death in January of 4-year-old Myls Dobson. It stems from the mayor’s belief that children at risk are served by multiple city agencies, and therefore the responsibility of keeping them safe and attending to their well-being should extend beyond the Administration of Children’s Services.
The New York City Children’s Cabinet will be chaired by Richard Buery, the Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives. The Cabinet will be composed of commissioners and directors from 20 different city agencies and mayoral offices, with subcommittees to be created at the discretion of members. The Cabinet will meet for the first time at the end of this month, and will create a schedule for regular meetings and specific outcomes.
“We are putting in place an all-hands-on-deck approach to enhance children’s overall well-being and prevent abuse, injury or death of vulnerable children and youth. We recognize that to protect our children and keep them safe, we need multi-agency, multi-sector strategies. I look forward to seeing the Children’s Cabinet deliver progress for families,” said Mayor de Blasio.
The New York City Children’s Cabinet members are:
Administration for Children’s Services (ACS)
Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO)
Center for Innovation through Data Intelligence (CIDI)
Department of Correction (DOC)
Department of Education (DOE)
Office of the First Lady of New York City (FLONYC)
Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC)
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH)
Department of Homeless Services (DHS)
Housing Authority (NYCHA)
Human Resources Administration (HRA)
Law Department, Family Court Division (Law)
Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ)
Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA)
Mayor’s Office of Operations (OPS)
Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence
Parks & Recreation Department (Parks)
Police Department (NYPD)
Department of Probation (DOP)
Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD)
The Children’s Cabinet will provide a space for leaders of multiple city agencies to identify and analyze individual and common areas of work that impact children safety and create an action plan to become child-safety focused. Specifically, the Children’s Cabinet will:
• Proactively create opportunities for early intervention and prevention
• Strengthen partnerships across agencies to meet the needs of vulnerable children and families
• Engage in collaborative problem solving and share and leverage each other’s resources
• Enhance communication between and among agencies
• Inform children’s policies and programs by utilizing linked administrative data from multiple agency systems.
• Set protocols for access to information, resolving policy conflicts, engaging in joint training and program development and coordinating service delivery.
