A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with the Honorable Judge Darrell Missey, who took on the role of Director at Missouri Children’s Division earlier this year.

As you might expect, Judge Missey has been busy. While most of our discussion centered around shared challenges and the ways our two organizations work together to ensure the safety and wellbeing of Missouri’s children, I had my team follow up with a few important questions…

“Missouri KidsFirst (MKF) and the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault (MOCSA) have teamed up to work toward the goal of creating safer environments that center child wellbeing through policy and procedure development and review.

The collaborators were fortunate to find an existing training, Awareness to Action…

Missouri boasts a decades-long history of providing home visiting services to its families. The newly-formed Office of Childhood (OOC) within the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) supports and administers home visiting services, and there is a presence of at least one home visiting program, or model, in every part of the state. The existence of the Office of Childhood and its leadership has been praised by stakeholders from across the state. Prior to the creation of the OOC, the broader home visiting system suffered from…