Ex-Florida official to head Beach's human services

VIRGINIA BEACH

A former district administrator from Florida's Department of Children and Families has been tapped as Virginia Beach's new Human Services director.

Robert R. Morin Jr., currently a full-time faculty member at the University of Central Florida's College of Health and Public Affairs, will step into the Beach post Jan. 1.

Morin will replace the retiring Terry Jenkins, a longtime city employee and advocate for elderly and mentally ill people. Jenkins was appointed Human Services director in 2004 after the merger of the city's departments of Social Services, Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services. Jenkins was also responsible for directing the city's Pendleton Child Service Center and the Juvenile Detention Center.

Morin, an instructor, graduate adviser and undergraduate program coordinator, brings more than 25 years of management experience in state and local government to the Beach. Although he's enjoyed teaching, he said, the Virginia Beach position presented an

opportunity to get back into the public administration work that he has missed since then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush asked him and other senior administrators to resign in a shake-up of the state agency.

"I always enjoyed being able to effect change," Morin said in a telephone interview from Orlando, Fla.

Much of Morin's work with the mentally retarded, developmentally disabled adults and with Child and Adult Protective Services occurred from 1988 to 2003 with Florida's Department of Children and Families.

In 1999, Morin was hired as an administrator for Brevard, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties, overseeing a district that employed more than 1,800 people, served more than 2 million residents and had a budget of more than $300 million. But the district endured numerous challenges, including child-abuse deaths and a backlog of foster care cases.

Under Morin's leadership, the number of children in foster care decreased, although an internal audit in 2002 found problems in the district, including a failure to complete out-of-state criminal checks of foster parents, incomplete paperwork and a failure of staff to communicate with one another on common cases.

That same year, child abuse investigators in the central Florida district were carrying some of the heaviest caseloads in the state. Morin said the total number of cases had been cut nearly in half - from 20,000 to about 11,000.

The backlog - which districts across the state were experiencing - stemmed partly, he said, from the disappearance of a 5-year-old Miami girl who had been under the care of the state's Department of Children and Families. The girl was missing for more than a year before the agency realized that caseworkers had lied about checking on her.

That led to a spike in child abuse investigations across Florida, as did a call to review all cases under the state's supervision, Morin said. "It was a tough time, but more often than not, the entire state was suffering through a growth in investigations."

The state agency's troubles eventually led to the resignation of its secretary, Kathleen Kearney, in August 2002. Later that year, after his re-election, Gov. Bush called for the resignations of the agency's top managers, including Morin.

Morin started a consulting business, then was hired at the University of Central Florida in 2004.

In the Virginia Beach position, Morin will earn $115,000 a year.

In a written statement released Tuesday, City Manager Jim Spore praised Morin's leadership experience. "The city of Virginia Beach welcomes his knowledge as we strive to improve the quality of life for all our citizens," Spore said.

Morin said his work across all Human Service programs, including with food stamp eligibility and Medicaid and financial assistance programs, should help as he settles into his new position and begins to establish goals for the city.

"The best that we can do is make sure that we have an emphasis on all of our programs and make sure they're all serving our clients," he said. "There's no program that stands out there by itself."

Susan E. White, (757) 222-5114, susan.white@pilotonline.com