Missouri Children’s Division Director Darrell Missey will retire on Nov. 1.
Missey is a former Jefferson County judge who has served as the head of the Children’s Division since 2021. The Children’s Division is responsible for overseeing the state’s child abuse and neglect investigations as well as its foster care system.
Missey spent much of his time during his tenure emphasizing a more preventative approach to child welfare issues, advocating that providing families with connections to social service programs could prevent children from being put in foster care.
Missey inherited an agency with major staffing issues in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Staffing problems prevented a program that sends parents to drug rehabilitation programs while their kids stay with relatives from being rolled out evenly throughout the state.
Staff shortages also resulted in a huge backlog of unfinished cases in St. Louis and St. Louis County — which alarmed state policymakers and child welfare advocates.
Earlier this year, the Children's Division had more than 7,000 cases of alleged abuse and neglect that remained open for more than 45 days. As of Aug. 30, St. Louis’ Children’s Division office had only 14 cases that were overdue — which accomplished Missey’s goal of getting the backlog basically cleared by the summer of 2024.
Kayla Ueligger will serve as the interim director of the Children’s Division. She currently is the Department of Social Services’ operational excellence director. Before taking on that role, Ueligger worked in the Children’s Division in a number of capacities — including as a front-line investigator.
Missouri’s next governor will take office in January and will have an opportunity to appoint a permanent successor to Missey. Both candidates, Republican Mike Kehoe and Democrat Crystal Quade, have promised to boost pay for Missouri’s child abuse investigators, who have a starting salary of around $44,000.
