Governor Ducey Announces Appointment Of Mike Faust As Next Department of Child Safety Director

PHOENIX — Governor Doug Ducey today announced the appointment of Mike Faust as the new Director of the Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS). Faust replaces Director Greg McKay, who will depart his position as director of the agency on August 30th to begin as Chief Operating Officer for Childhelp USA.

“There is no greater responsibility of government than to protect public safety and that’s especially important when it comes to caring for and protecting vulnerable children. Mike Faust has spent the last four years as an instrumental figure in the positive transformation of the Arizona Department of Child Safety,” said Governor Ducey. “His passion and deep understanding of this important responsibility has led to better outcomes for thousands of vulnerable children including the elimination of the inactive case backlog and an overall reduction of children in out-of-home care. I’m grateful for Mike’s willingness to lead this agency, and further our progress in caring for Arizona’s kids.”

Mike Faust

"I am grateful to have served under Director McKay for the last 4 years and observed firsthand how his leadership has led to unprecedented gains in improving outcomes for the children and families we serve,” said Faust. “I am humbled and thankful for the opportunity to continue those efforts. Through the efforts of our valued DCS case managers and staff, partnerships with the provider community and support of the kinship, foster and adoption community, we will continue to seek outcome improvements for Arizona's vulnerable children."

“As we’ve worked to continuously improve DCS, Mike Faust has been at the forefront of our efforts,” said Director Greg McKay. “I am confident in Mike’s ability to sustain and build on these successes, and I’m grateful for Governor Ducey’s vision and commitment to caring for Arizona’s most vulnerable children.”

Faust currently serves as Deputy Director of Support Services at DCS, where he has led the department’s strategic planning and management system innovations that have transformed DCS into a national model for results-based improvements. These efforts have earned the department repeated national recognition.

These results include:

• Safely reducing the number of children in out-of-home care by 25 percent, from a high of 19,044 children in 2016 to under 14,214 in May 2019.
• Eliminating the backlog of inactive cases, those exceeding the 60-day closure deadline, which peaked at a high of over 16,000 in January 2015 and has been reduced to 200 today.
• Reducing Arizona’s Child Abuse Hotline on-hold times from 12 minutes in February 2014 to less than one minute today.
• Reducing investigative caseloads of DCS caseworkers by approximately 70 percent, resulting in an average caseload of 13 cases today.
• Reducing the number of DCS open reports from a high of 33,245 in April 2015 to 5,914 today.
• Expanding Arizona’s kinship care stipend, resulting in 1,900 more families and loved ones caring for children in uncertain circumstances, an increase of 270 percent.

Faust began his career with the state in September 2015 at the Arizona Department of Administration’s Government Transformation Office. During this assignment, he worked closely with the DCS leadership team to build the agency’s management system and supported the development and implementation of the Department’s strategic objectives and improvement priorities.

Before joining the state, Mike spent over 15 years in the aerospace manufacturing industry in various capacities including general management, value stream management, manufacturing engineering and continuous improvement.

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