Director's Letter
As I enter this new season with Oklahoma Human Services, I’m centering our team with a renewed focus on compassion, accountability and excellence.
We will lead with compassion when working with families who need our services.
We will hold ourselves accountable for how we utilize the resources we’ve been given.
We will strive for excellence across the agency and across the state in all we do.
In this season, we’re committing to holding ourselves and others accountable. We’re emphasizing humanity as we deliver services critical to the lives of more than one million Oklahomans each year. As we serve our clients, we strive for the highest operational standards. Through these values, Oklahoma Human Services will offer help and hope to those who need us.
In Fiscal Year 2024, we actively worked to deepen our service to our communities across Oklahoma.
Adult and Family Services continued to stand as a firewall against hunger in our state. The federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program helped feed more than 900,000 Oklahomans. Along with our dedicated community partners and stakeholders, we are adamantly committed to ending hunger in our state.
Our Child Care Services team continued to ensure children’s safety and wellbeing when they were away from their own homes, and worked to support the availability of licensed, affordable child care for working parents.
Child Welfare Services continued to improve the way we support children and families. We are laser-focused on creating stronger families by offering preventive services before a crisis point is reached. We draw on deep connections with our community partners to help us provide services including behavioral health, parenting and household skills, and family preservation.
The much-anticipated Multi-sector Plan on Aging is finally underway! Our team in Community Living, Aging and Protective Services is spearheading the “Aging Our Way” project in Oklahoma. We are working with other state agencies, private sector partners, and our tribal nation neighbors to improve the wellbeing of our state’s aging population. The plan is federally funded and intended to help older Oklahomans have better access to services in rural, suburban and urban locations.
The historic investment of state dollars has furthered our efforts as we work toward creating a “no wait state” for families seeking services from providers who partner with our Developmental Disabilities Services team. Hundreds of families who’ve been waiting for years for in-home services to help their loved ones with disabilities are now receiving them. These services help individuals with disabilities remain in their own homes or in the home of a family member.
I’m proud to serve alongside a team of such dedicated public servants, and to support work that positively affects many Oklahomans’ lives.
Jeffrey Cartmell, Director
Oklahoma Human Services
