State Sen. Carine Werner’s task force on child safety focuses on DCS’ ‘horrible decisions’

PHOENIX — State Sen. Carine Werner’s child safety task force held a stakeholder meeting on Wednesday to institute reforms at the Department of Child Safety after the deaths of three children in recent months.

Emily Pike (14), Rebekah Baptiste (10) and Zariah Dodd (16) were all under the care and supervision of DCS before they died, and many are asking questions about why the agency was not able to find safe situations for the children.

Werner’s task force is zeroing in on some of those answers, particularly for Baptiste who was found severely beaten in Holbrook on July 27.

“There was a decision to put her (Baptiste) in a different foster home or with her father, and the decision was to put her with her father. Same with Zariah Dodd with her parents,” Werner said Friday on KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show. “We need to know who made that decision, were they following the rules and statutes, and if they were, we need to look at what that was and how such a horrible decision was made with what was there.”

“If they broke the law they should be fired.”

Stakeholder meeting on DCS

The stakeholder meeting at Arizona’s state capitol building brought together families, law enforcement, prosecutors, tribal leaders and child welfare advocates.

It produced five bullet points to pass along to DCS for immediate implementation in an effort to prevent future incidents, improve transparency and build a system that gives authorities broad, easy access to put children in the safest position possible.

Those bullet points are as follows:

• Clearer notification rules
• Stronger law enforcement partnerships
• Critical information packets
• Renewed tribal engagement
• Licensing transparency.

Werner said the lack of capability at DCS needs to be updated so that better decisions can be made and actions can be taken.

“If an employee had the option to hit one button and look at a drop down to see her entire history, along with 11 other calls and the other calls from her sibling, different decisions would have been made,” Werner said in regards to Baptiste.

The task force will also create reform recommendations for legislators ahead of the 2026 legislative session, which is scheduled to begin in January.

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