Media contact:
Nicole Dailey Jones: (216) 263-4602, (216)338-0863 or ndjones@cuyahogacounty.us
John Kohlstrand: (216) 698-2099 or jkohlstrand@cuyahogacounty.us

CLEVELAND — Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald has appointed Dr. Richard L. Jones to a key leadership role in the county’s Department of Health and Human Services.

As Cuyahoga County’s new administrator of income maintenance and child support services, Dr. Jones will oversee the Division of Employment and Family Services and the county’s Child Support Enforcement Agency. Employment and Family Services administers public assistance programs as well as enrollment to the Medicaid health insurance program; Child Support Enforcement works to make sure that parents who are due child support receive that payment. The offices have a combined total of more than 1,100 employees and a combined budget of more than $100 million.

Jones will begin work with Cuyahoga County on Nov. 15.

“Dr. Jones brings a long track record of experience in helping people in need. It’s good to have him back in Cuyahoga County,” FitzGerald said.

Dr. Jones began his career as a case worker in 1967 in what was then known as Cuyahoga County’s Division of Child Welfare Services. From 1991 to 1998, he served as president and chief executive officer of the Center for Families and Children in Cleveland.

For the past 13 years, Dr. Jones had served as president and CEO of Chicago-based Metropolitan Family Services.  Over the years, Metropolitan’s staff has delivered more than $390 million worth of services to more than 600,000 people. Dr. Jones also once served as executive director of Boston Children's Services in Boston.

Dr. Jones holds a master’s degree and a doctorate from the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences of Case Western Reserve University. He has received a number of awards, including the Leadership in Nonprofit Award by the Mandel School of Applies Social Sciences of Case Western Reserve University in 1997; a fellowship to the Harvard Business School in 2002; and the Lifetime Achievement Award for the State of Illinois by the Illinois Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. He has lectured about non-profits in Nicaragua and Kenya and at Boston College, Cleveland State University, and Case Western Reserve University.

Last year, Dr. Jones was one of a select group of delegates to participate in the Congress on Social Work and in 2010 and 2011 he served as a co-leader of a delegation of social workers studying the social service system in Russia and Brazil.