Sometimes it is advisable to endure some discomfort for a while, in hopes of achieving something better that is being sought for the longer term.

That might be good advice for the Blair County commissioners now regarding the seventh provisional license that the state Department of Human Services has issued to the Blair Children, Youth & Families agency.

Commissioners Chairman Dave Kessling indicated on Nov. 24 that he and fellow commissioners Amy Webster and Laura Burke were considering appealing the state’s provisional

license decision because of progress CYF has made to fix identified problems within the agency.

Such an appeal would be rooted in good intentions; there is no reason to doubt that.

However, it can be suggested that removal of “provisional” might be construed by some interested individuals as a sign that CYF is out of the proverbial woods, when it is not.

There still is plenty within the agency that needs to be fixed, as the state’s latest inspection of the local operation, conducted in September, has revealed.

For starters, the latest inspection identified 24 findings that were repeated from an inspection conducted in March. According to an article in the Mirror’s Nov. 28 edition, those findings “generally included references to time frames being exceeded for tasks within an investigation and instances where case files lacked signed documents to indicate that tasks were completed.”

According to the article, the state’s inspection report also noted cases with procedural issues that the county had to address through a plan involving more employee training or more supervision of work being done.

Better supervision and some better decision making by the county were two of the things that might have prevented the provisional license situation from happening at all.

Regardless, it is not all doom-and-gloom for CYF’s handling of its important responsibilities and for the possibility of optimism about the future

Shannon Tucker, CYF director, said on Nov. 24 that the county’s ongoing efforts to address the state’s concerns already have yielded what were described as “recognizable improvements.”

“I understand that the decision to issue another provisional license rests with the state,” Tucker said. “But at the same time, they’re telling us that they’re going to be pulling back on the amount of their presence in our office because they think we can do a lot on our own, without oversight. That tells me that we must be moving in the right direction.”

Tucker is right, but what exists at this time can be viewed from another perspective. That is with the belief that state officials’ ultimate intent is to ensure that there are no backward steps at CYF, such as cutting corners or reverting to some of the other bad habits that got CYF in trouble with the state in the first place.

In other words, the state wants to keep the pressure on at this time to make sure proper procedures are solidly in place before it releases CYF from the current degree of scrutiny.

That is why an appeal by the county probably is not the right course of action.

This is not about feel-good; it’s about ensuring that CYF gives those people it serves the best service possible.

The fact that this is the seventh provisional license is indicative of how troublesome CYF’s performance had become, leading up to the first provisional license issued in May 2022.

CYF is on a “well-paved” road to recovery. Don’t allow it to stray.