Former DCFS employee hears calling to return

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - The call to serve was ringing Thursday for hundreds of people in our area. More than 250 people showed up for the Department of Children and Family Services’ hiring fair, including a former DCFS employee.

Anthony Hypolit left DCFS back in 2008 and has worked several other jobs since, most recently at the post office, but in his time away he’s felt something missing.

“Sometimes we tend to try and help ourselves but sometimes that’s not our calling. We become our best by helping others. I always did like working with families and working with kids. I kind of regret leaving them to, you know, think about working somewhere else and that was a bad mistake and I think right now it’s the best time for me to come back,” said Hypolit.

Over and over again we’ve heard DCFS blame department problems on staffing shortages. Interim Secretary Terri Ricks is hopeful after Thursday’s fair where about 4 times the amount of people they need to hire showed up for interviews.

“My last check this morning before we got started was about 260 people have registered. Like I think that people are hearing that there are ways to help other people and they’re coming in droves and we’re super excited about it,” said Ricks.

The positions they’re looking to fill are child-welfare specialist, social service analysts, positions in the snap program, as well as several administrative positions.

“We have our partners here with us like Civil Service and we have tables for our Human Resources to get them started with things like background checks and drug testing,” Ricks added.

Ricks says they were ready to give conditional job offers on the spot, they extended 74 of them by the end of the fair.

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