Jess Dannhauser, the New York City official responsible for foster care, child welfare investigations and juvenile justice, is resigning from Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration, The Imprint has learned.
Former Mayor Eric Adams appointed Dannhauser commissioner of the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) in December 2021. He has presided over the roughly $3 billion agency through the turbulent COVID-19 pandemic and more recent pressure from the Trump administration, which has sought cuts to healthcare, public benefits and social services funding.
Dannhauser’s resignation letter sent Friday to Mamdani and two deputy mayors comes just over a week after the history-making mayoral candidate’s exuberant inauguration on New Year’s Day outside City Hall. He intends to leave office “by the beginning of March to allow time for a productive transition.”
Dannhauser — a former nonprofit child welfare agency executive and child welfare advisor under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg — does not state why he’s leaving the Administration for Children’s Services. But two sources familiar with the resignation suggested it was due to personal reasons, as opposed to lack of alignment with the young Democratic Socialist mayor’s progressive and ambitious agenda.
“I have come to the difficult decision that now is the right time to pass the baton of leadership at ACS,” Dannhauser wrote. “Serving NYC’s children and families these past four years — in partnership with thousands of dedicated public servants at ACS, non-profit providers and advocacy organizations — has been a profound privilege.”
Dannhauser declined to discuss his resignation Friday, but in his letter touted some of his agency’s achievements during the last four years, including tens of thousands more children in child care and thousands more families in “supportive services.” He also wrote that “thoughtful child protection responses are being carried out with urgency to keep children safe,” while “far fewer families are experiencing unnecessary intrusion and separation,” and “fewer children are awaiting placement.” Dannhauser further stated that “our youth centers are safer and more able to nurture young people’s development.”
The Mayor’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mamdani has said little about his plans for the child welfare system, but on Dec. 30 he announced the appointment of Helen Arteaga Landaverde, a former hospital CEO, as deputy mayor for health and human services, which oversees the Administration for Children’s Services.
Adams praised Dannhauser’s tenure at a November press event, thanking him for “a job well done and changing the lives of young people every day.”
According to the most recent Mayor’s Management Report, Dannhauser presided over a dramatic increase in cases referred out of the child welfare system to community-based assistance programs. Known by the acronym CARES, the program involves diverting lower-risk child maltreatment cases into preventive services without the punitive consequences and potential family separation that can result from a formal investigation. The rate of cases diverted to CARES more than tripled over the last five fiscal years, from 6.6% to 22%.
Amid this approach and a variety of other citywide reforms, the average number of children in foster care per day in New York City has declined to a historic low of roughly 6,400. However, children re-entering foster care within a year of being reunited with their families has ticked up to nearly 9%, according to city data, above the city’s own 6% target.
Dannhauser also presided over the growth of two ambitious programs that aim to support older foster youth who can face well-documented challenges transitioning into adulthood: The College Choice program, which provides financial aid and individual college advisement, and Fair Futures, which provided mentor-coaches to more than 4,300 youth in the 2025 fiscal year.
At a public event highlighting the progress of older foster youth participating in Fair Futures, which he has championed for years, Dannhauser teared up as he expressed his admiration for their perseverance and success despite great hardships.
There have been controversies during his tenure as well. Dannhauser faced public turbulence that often afflicts leaders of child welfare agencies: After several gruesome fatalities involving children whose parents were under the supervision of the city’s child welfare agency, the right-wing New York Post editorial board accused him in 2024 of prioritizing “equity” over children’s safety, and called for his firing.
In an op-ed written for The Imprint last year, Dannhauser wrote that “when a child known to ACS dies or is severely injured, we focus diligently on learning from that tragedy to identify ways to prevent others from being at risk in the future.” He added that his agency “investigates every fatality of a New York City child that is reported to the state hotline with allegations of possible abuse or maltreatment.”
He concluded: “When it comes to the safety and the future of the city’s children and the success of its families, we will not rest.”
One of the nation’s most outspoken critics of foster care and family separation, policy advocate and blogger Richard Wexler, expressed exasperation that Dannhauser hasn’t pushed harder to dismantle the state’s decades old system for receiving and vetting child maltreatment allegations.
Dannhauser and his deputies responded publicly to critiques of his agency, but has not yet discussed his resignation with the public.
His resignation letter concludes with gratitude for former Mayor Adams — who defended the commissioner throughout his tenure and encouraged Mamdani to keep him on board. Dannhauser also thanked the new mayor for allowing him to stay through the leadership transition.
