BREAKING NEWS: Chafee Names Interim Director of DCYF

BREAKING NEWS: Chafee Names Interim Director of DCYF

Governor Lincoln Chafee today named Kevin Aucoin as the Interim Director of the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF).

“Kevin Aucoin is well known and well respected in Rhode Island for working tirelessly on behalf of the young people and families of our state,” Chafee said. “I am confident that he can lead DCYF through the period of its national search to find the brightest and most capable candidate to head one of our state’s most important departments.”

Since 2009, Aucoin has served as the Acting Superintendent of the Thomas E. Slater Training School and he has been a senior legal advisor to the legal director at DCYF since 2001.

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Aucoin will hold the position while Chafee searches for a permanent appointment. The search is being headed up by Margaret Holland McDuff, Chief Executive Officer of Family Service of Rhode Island and Office of Health and Human Services Secretary Steven M. Costantino.

The announcement comes after a much-publicized public rift between then-Governor-elect Chafee and DCYF. Before the inauguration, the state agency announced plans to close three children’s shelters. Chafee asked DCYF to wait until he took office, but the department ignored the request and moved forward with the closures.