The Blair County commissioners are justified in breathing a sigh of relief these days that their efforts on behalf of the county’s Children, Youth & Families department have paid off.

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services has restored the full operating license of the Blair agency following nearly four years of intense local anxiety over the ultimate fate of CYF and its vital mission.

Going forward, the challenge will be to ensure that CYF does not return to the problem existence within which it had languished for so long. Accomplishing that will necessitate close scrutiny by the commissioners — and even the state — despite the belief that CYF has returned to — and now is poised to exceed — the strong basic structure under which it operated prior to the start of its protracted troubles.

CYF is too important — too necessary — to be operating at less than optimum performance. That was the message that the state Human Services Department was delivering during the years when it was issuing seven provisional licenses that allowed CYF to continue to operate despite the serious concerns engulfing it.

Of course, that message remains relevant today and must continue to be enforced.

To anyone who did not follow, or perhaps missed some of, the happenings surrounding CYF over the years in question, the following paragraphs from a front-page article in the Mirror’s April 16 edition sum up the situation:

“The state issued Blair County CYF its first provisional license in May 2022 after finding multiple violations in areas assessing children welfare complaints and risks, during the prior 12 months.

“At that time, CYF was having difficulty filling vacant positions and casework backlogs were increasing. And CYF staff, in June 2022, appealed to county commissioners for help in light of the increasing amount of vacant positions when pay levels were too low to attract applicants during what was recognized as a statewide shortage of caseworkers.”

In May 2024, as CYF’s troubling situation was persisting, the state required county leaders to negotiate a settlement agreement outlining the state’s ongoing role in county operations and efforts that included greater reliance on contracted personnel, use of state-approved consultants, hiring of qualified part-time personnel, salary improvements, more training and potential personnel changes.

Ongoing are efforts to recruit qualified applicants, and those efforts must continue to be expanded until that shortage is resolved.

The commissioners are right in being excited about what has been accomplished so far, but much additional work needs to be done on the staffing front, sooner rather than later.

The commissioners seem committed to that.

Meanwhile, it was uplifting for the county to receive kind words from DHS Secretary Val Arkoosh, who said, “We are encouraged by BCCYF’s progress and the measurable gains it has made toward achieving operational compliance, and this full license underscores the agency’s stability.”

The words “operational compliance” and “stability” certainly are words important to those people who CYF exists to serve. Many of those people no doubt experienced times during the past four years when they felt uneasy and uncertain in response to CYF’s troubles and how those troubles might affect them, if they already had not been affected.

“Change can be very difficult, and our staff had to be open to a tremendous amount of change over the last several years and work hard to build the agency,” said Commissioner Laura Burke, responding to the restoration of CYF’s full operating license.

That statement about the necessity for change and hard work certainly applies to the board of commissioners as well.