Policy Analyst, New York State Office of Children and Family Services

>> My name is Tom Hoag and currently I'm a policy analyst at the New York State Office of Children and Family Services. So legislators pass laws relative to child welfare and juvenile justice. We at the Office of Children and Family Services see these laws and have to kind of interpret how those professionals in the field that are dealing with children, and child welfare, and juvenile justice will have to enact or implement the procedures that the law dictates. We put that in writing for them to understand. The director of our bureau will get the laws, do a quick study, say, "This belongs to, say, Tom Hoag," because of the background with the juvenile justice and child welfare would be my expertise. And then I have to figure out, you know, to create a document or a product, if you will, that the field will then understand what they have to do on the basis of the law. Recently we had to instruct the field that they have the capacity to release a youth enforce secure Social Security number for the purposes of securing housing, particularly Section 8 housing, which is housing for those that are having difficulty, you know, with the expense of getting housing. So we had to instruct the field that there's forms that need to be filled out and they can, in fact, instruct parents, force the parents, to provide Social Security number to a landlord. The concern being identity theft. Kids that are in foster care are easy victims and they're vulnerable in terms of identity theft. So the release of their Social Security number, important to protect that. I spent about 24 years in facilities of juvenile delinquents. I, from there I kind of morphed into the policy bureau. It was kind of time for me to get out of the facility life because that's a little physically challenging as you get older. And they recognized my expertise because I had worked at ten facilities for 24 years. And they hired me in the Bureau of Policy Analysis.