Halfway through my question — “What is your reaction to Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano’s call for your resignation?” — Joette Katz, commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, leans back in her chair and her lips curve in a slight smile.

“I don’t work for him. I work for Gov. Malloy and I have Gov. Malloy’s complete support and confidence, for which I am grateful,” she responds after I get the question out.

We are seated at a conference table in her 10th floor office atop the DCF building, overlooking Hartford. She has decorated it with photos, certificates, drawings and accolades largely from her legal career, which culminated with her appointment to the state Supreme Court. At Malloy’s request, she left the bench in 2011 to take control of DCF.

Joining us is Kristina Stevens, administrator for the DCF Clinical and Community Consultation and Support Division, who, with encyclopedic recall, spouts out the latest theories and practices in caring for traumatized children. Gary Kleeblatt, communications director for the department, tries to refocus the conversation on policy when it turns to calls for resignation.

It is Wednesday, the peak of the recent heatwave, the 97 degrees outside the office windows indicative of the heat DCF is now feeling.

The enormity of what this agency confronts is daunting. Society’s failings end up at its doorstep. It is charged with the care of abused children, of kids taken from their homes because their parents were drug addicts or alcoholics, of adolescents who are “compromised” because mom kept drinking or drugging when they were in utero, of children who are products of bad behaviors and addictive tendencies often passed down through generations.

The agency has 3,000 employees — social workers and support staff — to monitor the 35,000 children it is serving at any one time. Its budget, $132 million at its founding in 1969, is $821 million today.

And when something goes wrong, when a child dies with the family to which they were returned or while in the care of a questionable foster parent, or when a kid ends up abused because a social worker tried to keep a family together, it’s DCF’s fault, the media reports and the politicians pile on.

“The person who sits in this seat needs to not be afraid of being fired because otherwise you couldn’t get anything done,” Katz tells me.

The focus of the latest controversy is a report by the Office of Child Advocate (OCA) about the frequent use of restraints in trying to control the adolescents, most ages 16-19, who are referred to DCF by the juvenile court system. The teens are incarcerated for up to six months at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School for boys and at the Pueblo Unit for girls, both in Middletown, before being return to community-based programs.

The OCA reports that during a year-long review it found that one-quarter of youths at the facilities are restrained during a typical month. OCA considers dozens of the restraints unlawful because the situations did not present a risk of harm.

Katz, while not refuting the findings, says that the report fails to recognize the success her department has had in reducing the numbers of young people who end up in the locked units and in shortening their stays. A couple of years ago 180 were held there, last year 122, and as of last week, 74 — with 68 in the boys unit and six girls at Pueblo.

The smaller number presents the toughest cases, the repeat lawbreakers who failed to respond to community-based programs and for which the court saw no alternative, she explains.

The investment DCF will make in this small group to uncover and address the core issues at the root of their misbehavior is extraordinary.

“These are kids that have already been through so many programs, so many opportunities that it really does take a team — therapists, and behavioral therapists, clinicians and psychiatrists — and so we do, we spend a fortune,” Katz adds.

Anticipating an adverse report from the OCA, Katz hired Dr. Robert Kinscherff, a national expert in juvenile justice and mental health, to examine the training school and make recommendations. By the time the OCA released its report, DCF had an action plan.

The plan ends the practice of restraining juveniles in a prone (face down) position, seeks to reduce the use of restraints generally through more effective crisis management, and strives to better integrate clinical treatment and counseling, extending it to the second shift.

Democratic leaders in the legislature announced last week that legislative hearings will be held concerning the conditions and practices at the locked-down facilities.

The agency felt more heat when an audit released toward week's end found evidence of DCF employees arriving late for work; cited DCF for failing to act in timely fashion on foster home licenses; and for not accessing all the federal aid to which it is entitled, among other issues.

Katz points to DCF's success in getting children out of institutional care by assigning children when possible to extended family or family friends. The number of children assigned to out-of-state care has decreased 97 percent during her tenure, to just 11 kids as of June 1.

“I think we’re doing really well, but we can do a heck of a lot better,” Katz says with great earnestness.

Yet, try as she might, the problems her agency is asked to confront are so big, the enormity of the bureaucracy assigned to deal with it so ungainly, this former Supreme Court justice could well end up being judged a failure, as have so many of her predecessors. It may just be that her's is an impossible job.

Paul Choiniere is the editorial page editor.