Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio on Sunday announced Gladys Carrión as as his next Children’s Services commissioner, plucking her from Gov. Cuomo’s administration as the head of the state Office of Children and Family Services.
“There is no higher calling than protecting our children,” de Blasio said in making the announcement in the Lower East Side.
He said he and Carrion share a “fundamental belief that we cannot leave a single family or child behind.”
At the state office, Carrion moved to place more juveniles in community programs versus detention centers and closed some upstate detention centers.
Carrion, who is from the South Bronx, has a law degree from New York University. She started her career at Bronx Legal Services. She went on to become a commissioner of New York City’s Community Development Agency, and later worked at Inwood House and the United Way.
“I’ve had the privilege of working with tremendous leaders before, but this will be the first time that we will work for one that deeply understands the core of this work and has been in the trenches fighting for it,” Carrion said.
On Sunday, de Blasio also repeatedly referenced the case of Nixmary Brown, a 7-year-old Brooklyn girl was killed by her parents in 2006. As a City councilman, he led the committee investigating the death and the city’s response.
The incoming mayor also credited outgoing Mayor Bloomberg for his approach to Children’s Services, saying he as “broadly been in the right direction.”