I’ll say this much for Gov. Katie Hobbs’ administration and the Arizona Legislature: When it comes to fixing the wretched mess that is the Arizona “child welfare” system, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

First, the governor named Matthew Stewart to “transform” the Department of Child Safety. But within two months, she caved to Republican pressure, fired him and replaced him with David Lujan, who immediately declared he was “not looking to do anything radical at this agency.”

Lujan has certainly kept his word. The most recent evidence is the latest missed opportunity – getting the Legislature to take away $6.5 million from the least harmful forms of substitute care — kinship foster care and family foster care with strangers — and put that money into the worst kind of foster care of all, group homes and institutions.

Since this is also the most expensive form of care, it’s no wonder DCS found itself with a shortfall in its budget.

The right way to respond would have been to treat this as an opportunity. Not only does Arizona tear apart families at a rate 50% above the national average, not only does Maricopa County tear apart families at the highest rate among America’s largest counties, Arizona also uses group homes and institutions at a rate double the national average.

Story after story documents the consequences.

• There was the diabetic child who died when a group home didn’t properly treat his diabetes.

• There was a second diabetic child who also died when a group home didn’t properly treat his diabetes.

• There was the young teen who, years later, received a $1.4 million lawsuit settlement after, the suit alleges, she was improperly torn from her home only to be injured in a group home.

• There were the two teens who drowned after running from a group home.

And even as DCS was seeking more money for such places, the people of the San Carlos Apache tribe were mourning the death of 14-year-old Emily Pike, whose dismembered body was found after she ran away from a group home. The home was the subject of 89 police calls and 30 missing persons calls in the past three years. Pike herself had run away three times before, each time saying she didn’t want to return.

These are not aberrations. Nationwide, the rate of abuse in all foster care is high — but the rate in group homes and institutions is even higher. A U.S. Senate Committee report concluded that when it comes to institutionalizing children, “The risk of harm … is endemic to the operating model.”

But even were there no physical or sexual abuse in group homes, they still would be harmful — because the whole model is harmful. Study after study documents that congregate care doesn’t work, and there are far better options. 

DCS will say they’d like to place more of these children with families but the family foster homes are full. But they’re full only because Arizona takes away children at such an obscene rate. Get the children who don’t need to be in foster homes back home and there will be plenty of room in family foster homes for the relatively few who really need them — and no need to institutionalize any child.

But the group home industry will tell you such places are needed for children with serious behavior problems who supposedly can’t live with a family. It’s not true. Yes, some of these children can’t be handled by a family — if the family doesn’t get help. But DCS could solve this problem by first focusing on intensive help to birth parents so their children never need to be taken.

When children really must be taken, DCS could provide that kind of help to extended families providing kinship foster care so more of them can step forward. When kin aren’t available, they can provide intensive help to stranger family foster homes. In addition to being far better for children, this approach also costs less.

But in Arizona, this approach might be considered radical, and we know how Lujan feels about that. We’ve seen what he came up with instead.

Republicans in the Legislature turned the whole thing into a circus, thumping their chests and proclaiming their outrage — and then gave Lujan everything he wanted.

I’ll bet Matthew Stewart would have handled it differently. Unfortunately, we’ll never know.

Richard Wexler is executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, www.nccpr.org