Senator Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) faces accusations from Georgia’s top child welfare official, Candice Broce, director of the Georgia Division of Family & Children Services (DFCS), who claims Ossoff is "nowhere to be found" on critical foster care issues despite promoting his role in reforms through a new campaign ad.

The ad, titled "Our Kids," highlights a bipartisan investigation into Georgia's foster care system involving Ossoff and Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). However, Broce criticized the ad as using vulnerable children and the troubled foster care system for political credit. She stated, "For five years, I’ve been in the trenches fighting for vulnerable children and foster care reform alongside thousands of DFCS workers. Trust us when we say Jon Ossoff is nowhere to be found."

Broce also noted bipartisan support for foster care funding, saying, "What’s actually bipartisan is the over $100 million in state funds we’ve gotten from Republican and Democrat legislators who support the issues we’re tackling and believe we deserve more resources." She oversees roughly 40 state agencies, including DFCS, which report to Governor Brian Kemp.

Broce further criticized Ossoff for not securing more funding for DFCS or federal support for child advocacy centers, not fixing federal laws impacting group homes, and failing to streamline adoptions.

In response, Ossoff's team called Broce an "unqualified partisan political hack" and accused her of "dangerous incompetence." They defended Ossoff's oversight work, which uncovered that children in Georgia’s foster care system were likely sex trafficked while in state care, among other issues. Ossoff's team also argued that it is not the senator's responsibility to fix the state agency Broce leads, accusing her of unfairly expecting him to do so.

This dispute emerges as Ossoff seeks re-election in one of the nation’s most closely watched races.

Sources