Resisting Scarcity Thinking: A Call for Smarter Policy
By Rebecca Jones Gaston
Child Welfare Director Perspectives
Our new series, Child Welfare Director Perspectives, invites insights from bipartisan former state child welfare leaders on the biggest ideas shaping the field today.
This new series surfaces how former state child welfare leaders think through high-stakes policy moments.
These aren’t endorsements; they’re strategic intelligence.
We share them because in moments like this, understanding how different leaders actually think is more useful than hearing what other people think they should do.
By looking at leadership across political and geographic contexts, you get to see the kind of thinking that shapes decisions before they’re public.
Different states, different politics, & different mental models- same stakes.
First up: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — a sweeping proposal with major implications for child welfare systems across the country.
How would and could leaders prepare and reflect on Doug Steiger’s analysis of the current dynamics of budget reconciliation?
Resisting Scarcity Thinking: A Call for Smarter Policy
By Rebecca Jones Gaston
Former Commissioner, U.S. Administration on Children, Youth and Families
Former Director, Child Welfare, Department of Human Services, Oregon
As a former state child welfare director and federal commissioner, hearing about sizable cuts to Medicaid and state budgets sets off a familiar alarm.
It’s never welcome news—especially when you’re leading system transformation with a focus on well-being and equitable outcomes.
In budget crunches, resist scarcity thinking. Anchor to mission.
Leadership is navigating uncertainty with clarity and purpose, not fear. Resist the reflex to retreat into scarcity thinking and instead sharpen focus on the mission: strengthening families and preventing unnecessary system involvement.
When budget reductions are imminent, the first step is anchoring to a clear, guiding vision. For me, that has always been about keeping children safely with their families.
Start with a clear vision—and hard data.
In tough budget moments, systems tend to revert to muscle memory—leaning more heavily on Title IV-E foster care funding because it feels more predictable.
But removing children from their families is not only a relational loss; it’s expensive and does not necessarily improve safety.
Prevention offers real return on investment, both in human outcomes and fiscal terms.
My first move would be to gather my senior leadership team and dive into the data. We’d need to map out where we’re most vulnerable, but also where we have flexibility.
I’d ask:
What programs are delivering the most impact per dollar?
What services are duplicative or underutilized?
Are there opportunities to braid funding or shift services upstream?
These questions are less about cutting and more about optimizing and protecting what works.
Know your funding systems—or lose leverage.
Equally critical is understanding Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) not just as funding streams, but as policy levers. State-level decisions around eligibility, coverage, and match rates can dramatically alter what's possible.
As a director, I made it a priority to really know the fiscal landscape myself—not just rely on what others told me. If you can't speak the language of budgets and financing, you're not driving the deliberations.
To cabinet leaders and legislators: prevention isn’t optional—it’s protective.
To cabinet leadership and legislators, I would convey this message: cutting upstream supports guarantees downstream costs.
When families lose access to behavioral health care, substance use treatment, housing supports, or child care, we will see them instead enter our child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
Cutting prevention when budgets are tight doesn’t avoid costs; it delays and shifts them to less effective and efficient approaches. Preserving prevention maintains the flexibility that supports agile systems that deliver safe, stable, thriving families.
Ultimately, under pressure it’s important to lead with purpose and discipline—never forgetting that every dollar cut is felt most acutely by the families we serve.
Rebecca Jones Gaston served as Commissioner of ACYF from 2022 to 2025. She served as Oregon’s child welfare director from 2019 to 2022. She is the Founder and Chief Strategist of RJG Consulting, LLC.