Seattle—Casey Family Programs has hired Ken Patterson as managing director of child and family services. The position will oversee Casey Family Programs services to children and families in Texas, Arizona and Idaho. Patterson will support the foundation’s 2020 Strategy by helping to improve outcomes for children and youth in foster care and advancing innovative best practices in child welfare.
Casey Family Programs’ 2020 Strategy seeks to:
- Safely reduce the number of children in foster care in America by half by the year 2020.
- Effectively reinvest child welfare savings to strengthen the child welfare system.
- Improve outcomes for youth in foster care, so they can transition to be self-sufficient, healthy adults.
Casey Family Programs is implementing the 2020 Strategy through direct service to children in foster care as well as through consulting with child welfare agencies and advancing public policy.
“Ken’s proven success improving services for children and families in California, Utah and Idaho will be a critical asset as we implement our 2020 Strategy. Our aim is to reduce the need for foster care and to improve the life of every child who enters the foster care system,” said David A. Berns, executive vice president of child and family services for Casey Family Programs.
Stanislaus County in central California, where Patterson served as community services director, safely reduced its foster care population by nearly 40 percent during the past 10 years while the county’s child population grew by 24 percent.
“This is a very exciting time to be joining Casey Family Programs,” said Patterson. “On any given day, there are 513,000 children in foster care in America. Casey Family Programs’ 2020 Strategy will make a dramatic difference in the lives of these children by helping them find a permanent home and a path to success in life.”
Patterson is a native of Idaho and has spent his career in child welfare and family and youth services around the West. He has designed and implemented state-of-the-art practice models to improve services for children and families and frequently consults with child welfare agencies around the country on systems improvement.
As the director of the Stanislaus County Community Services Agency, Patterson was responsible for managing child, adult and aging services in a community of 525,000.
Other work Patterson has done to improve services to children and families includes leading the Idaho Division of Family and Community Services’ adoption of a family-centered practice model, creating the Utah Division of Child and Family Services’ performance milestone plan, and implementing a redesign initiative for the Stanislaus County Child Welfare Services Agency.