The measure of a foster care system should be how well it succeeds in safely keeping children with family, reunifying them with family, or helping them find a permanent home. By these measures, Northwest Florida is making real progress.
When NWF Health Network assumed responsibility for foster care in Circuit 1 in November 2022, more than 1,200 children were living in out-of-home care across Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties. We went to work developing safety management services, filling case management positions, supporting foster parents, and surging adoption resources. The result was more reunifications, record adoptions and fewer children in foster care. By July 2026, the census had fallen to 936, a reduction of 311 children, or approximately 25 percent.
That progress matters. But it is not the finish line.
Our ambition is not simply to be better than the system we inherited. Our goal is a step-change in performance, one that makes the Florida Panhandle the highest-performing and most supported child protection system in America.
The next phase begins October 1, when case management transitions from Families First Network to Lutheran Services of Florida in Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties, and to First City Outreach in Escambia County. Families First Network and its case managers have served Panhandle families for more than 20 years, and their contributions deserve to be honored. This new structure builds on that work while creating smaller case management footprints and bringing more community organizations to the table.
Foster care is not a commodity. We are not purchasing interchangeable units of case management at the lowest price. We are making long-term investments in children whose experiences today will shape their health, education, relationships, and families for decades.
Who we trust to serve our children and families matters deeply. Our actions and our service require more than efficiency. It requires relationships, values, accuracy, time and discernment. We believe smaller case management structures create greater opportunity for each.
This new structure also creates an opportunity to bring more people into the work. Lutheran Services of Florida and First City Outreach are faith-based organizations that can help connect people and resources that historically have not had a pathway into formally serving our families. For people of faith, James 1:27 makes that responsibility unmistakable: we are called to care for children in distress.
There is no mistaking this is hard work. It requires people who are motivated to deeply engage with families, to mentor, nurture, support and remain connected long after a government case closes. Families are the building blocks of neighborhoods, churches, and commerce. Strengthen families and you strengthen communities.
After 35 years working inside this system, I have seen too much of this work disappear behind bureaucracies, job titles, acronyms and policies. Over time, communities were taught that foster care belonged to government officials and professionals rather than to all of us. The result was not a lack of compassion. It was a loss of agency that produced spectators, not stewards.
Government has an essential role: establish the guardrails, protect children and demand results. But communities must have the agency to care. Expanding the provider network in Circuit 1 puts that philosophy into practice by reducing the scale of case management organizations while expanding the community around children and families. Most importantly, we want children connected to communities that know them and will be there long after their “case file” is closed.
Since 2023, 311 fewer children are living in foster care. That is a good start.
But “better than before” is not our standard. We intend to measure ourselves against Panhandle values and the best-performing systems in America, not merely against our own past.
I am asking you to join this effort. We have an opportunity to bring this work out from behind the bureaucracy, return agency to our communities, and let light shine on work that belongs to all of us.
Government must protect. Communities must care. And together, we intend to make the Panhandle the best place in America for families to grow stronger.
Mike Watkins, CEO, NWF Health Network
