Overhaul Florida’s ‘failing’ Department of Children and Families, senators say
By Romy Ellenbogen Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
Updated September 4, 2026 4:27 PM
A group of Florida state senators is eyeing an overhaul of Florida’s child welfare agency, saying the Department of Children and Families is a “systemic failure.”
In a Friday news conference, Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Pensacola, pointed to a grand jury report out of Florida’s 5th Judicial Circuit that said the state’s Department of Children and Families was “failing catastrophically” at protecting vulnerable children and adults.
The state attorney empaneled the grand jury on the same day the office indicted a family member for the first-degree murder of a child. The state had investigated and visited the family 14 times before the murder, according to the report.
The report also mentions a separate case where the department investigated a foster family 18 times. Despite that, the agency permitted the family to adopt its foster children. In the years after the adoption, the department fielded 37 additional complaints but only ever temporarily took children away from the home.
In 2026, the adoptive father was arrested for sexual offenses against one of the children, the report said. Gaetz, Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, and Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Sunny Isles Beach independent, are working on legislation that incorporates several of the jury’s 34 recommendations.
Some recommendations include mandating body cameras for caseworkers and ensuring that people with multiple investigative complaints are disqualified from being adoptive parents. “If DCF and some of its contractors have failed, so does the Florida Legislature and so have I,” Gaetz said.
Gaetz said issues with Florida’s child welfare system aren’t new, noting similar grand jury reports from 2002, 2011 and 2014, which all raised similar concerns about the department, Gaetz said.
“I wish I could have and I wish I would have known more and done more then, but now I will,” said Gaetz, a former Senate president. A spokesperson for the department said it takes the grand jury’s findings seriously, saying that any case where a child or adult wasn’t protected warrants careful examination.
“The cases highlighted in the report span approximately a decade, during which Florida’s child and adult protection systems underwent significant changes in law, policy and practice,” spokesperson Anna Holaday said in a statement. “Many of the report’s recommendations reflect safeguards and reforms already in place today, while others would require legislative action, additional funding or further legal review,” she said.
Holaday did not specifically address Gaetz’s proposal. One of Gaetz’s proposed changes would be to have the department secretary, who is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Florida Senate, review all cases where there is a proposed termination of parental rights. He also said parents must have due process, and should be able to dispute inaccurate information from the agency without fear of being retaliated against.
Gaetz also said the department should not unnecessarily move children hundreds of miles from home. Gaetz held his news conference at the Santa Rosa County Courthouse during a hearing for a Panhandle mother whose daughter was removed from her care around two years ago.
Pizzo is representing the woman, Joy Zuraff, in her legal case. Florida took custody of Zuraff’s daughter, Kenlee, after the state determined she was ignoring a doctor’s advice about how to treat the girl’s cystic fibrosis.
Kenlee was in state custody in Jacksonville, around six hours from her mother. While Gaetz and Pizzo have fought for the family’s reunification, some of Zuraff’s family members have spoken out and said lawmakers are making assumptions about the case without knowing the full circumstances. State lawmakers have also called on the department to investigate an “alarming” side door in the foster care system in Hillsborough County.
A Tampa Bay Times investigation recently found that more than 300 times in the last four years, the county’s lead child welfare agency used a process called “temporary custody transfers” to keep children from their parents’ care and place them with relatives.
The approach does not have the same oversight, services or safeguards in place as the traditional foster care system, which also steers kids to live with family members. Lawmakers from both parties have called for reform. The regular legislative session is set to begin March 2.
Tampa Bay Times reporter Teghan Simonton contributed to this report. This story was originally published September 4, 2026 at 2:48 PM.
