Meet Our Director

To kick off 2026, we would like shine a spotlight on our Director, Debbie Kiley.

Background
When I started with MCJFS as a clerk in 1993, I helped coordinate programs for newly pregnant women and children up to age 5. I was only 22 years old and wasn’t really sure about this being a long-term job for me. However, as I grew into the role of case manager, helping families with supportive programs, along with learning complex rules and programs, I knew I had found something I was passionate about… and modestly good at.

From my case manager role, I advanced to a supervisor and remained in that role managing several different teams for over 15 years. When the Administrator of Public Assistance came open, I was offered that role and was in it for just a short year and a half before I assumed the Director position. I have now been with MCJFS for 32 years and in the Director role for 5 years.

I did not have the opportunity to attend college immediately after high school, so I started in my late 30’s, attending part-time while working full-time.  I graduated from Baldwin Wallace in 2014 with a BA in Business and a minor in Human Resources. I feel my “business brain” has been a great asset as Director of JFS. The agency not only deals with human and social service programs, but there is also a strong business component to what we do: budgets to balance, funds to properly appropriate, employees to manage, mentor, and grow.

Role
As the Director, my role is to manage a triple-combined agency, which includes public assistance programs, child support services, and investigative responses to claims of abuse and neglect of our county’s children. The agency has about 114 staff and approximately 15 contracts with outside entities. The agency’s budget is roughly $10 million annually with the majority of expenses going towards helping families in crisis along with supportive and rehabilitative services for youth suffering from abuse/neglect.

My schedule is different every day. My calendar is full of meetings with community partners, internal staff members, State partners, and County department heads. Each day is an opportunity to collaborate with others, work solutions to problems or issues, and manage the revenue and expenses of the agency.

I believe in being a gracious public servant. I believe I have a responsibility to do the right thing even if the right thing isn’t popular; but I also believe in sharing the “why” behind my decisions so that even in disagreement, there can be appreciation for where I stand and why. The public has put a lot of trust in this agency, and we should work hard to honor that.

Favorites
I love when our community partners collaborate with us for the greater goal of assisting families – when we get together, have tough but meaningful conversations, and come up with solutions that we’ve developed to help families… and then it works!

Challenges
There are so many moving parts to MCJFS: Public Assistance has their rules, Child Support their own, and Child Protective Services a different set. It’s challenging to remember a vast number of rules and the budgeting for each division, as well as assisting managers with a variety of staff personalities and roles. Additionally, getting to know and being able to spend time with each division is challenging, not only because we have hybrid work schedules and some staff aren’t always in the agency, but I’m often running from one meeting to the next or one issue to the next, and feel like time simply gets away from me.

Inspiration
There are days where I put my head in my hands, sometimes in frustration, sometimes in sadness. On those days, I do my best to remind myself that it’s not “all bad.” I try to remember successes we’ve had and to stay focused on the next day and the next thing because it needs my attention. I cannot remain in frustration’s past.

I also work hard to take care of myself. I make time to work out; I make time to eat well; I make time to walk my dog at day’s end regardless of the weather. It gets me outside and into fresh air to clear my head and meditate on the day.

I still marvel sometimes at where I’ve ended up. There are many days I pull into the MCJFS parking lot and am (still) humbled that I manage this building and the great people in it. I brag of my staff often. Medina is so very blessed to have such dedicated people, and I’m grateful to be able to lead them.