About Family Services

This division promotes safety, permanency and well-being for children, families and individuals in Virginia. It is composed of the following units:

• Adoption
• Adult Services
• Child Protective Services
• Continuous Quality Improvement
• Foster Care
• Interstate Compact on Placement of Children/Interstate Compact on Adoption and Medical Assistance
• Outcome Based Reporting and Analysis
• Resource Family Development

The Division's programs are designed to address the needs of Virginia's most vulnerable citizens. The programs balance effective intervention (when necessary) and emphasis on personal responsibility for safety, stability and well-being. The programs are state supervised and locally administered. Those operated at the local level are:

• Adoptions
• Adult Services
• Adult Protective Services
• Auxiliary Grants
• Child Protective Services
• Foster Care
• Foster Care Prevention
• Independent Living
• Safe and Stable Families

Division programs that are state administered:

• Interstate Adoptions/Placements
• Virginia Caregivers' Grant Program
• Adoption Records
• Adoption Disclosure
• Child Protective Services/Adult Protective Services Hotline

Training for the local department of social services workers is primarily offered by the Virginia Institute of Social Services Training Activities (VISSTA), which provides training through five regional training centers.

The Virginia Children's Services Practice Model

The children's services practice model is central to Family Services' decision making; present in all division meetings; and in every interaction that the division has with a child or family. Decisions that are based on the practice model will be supported and championed. Guided by this model, the division's process to continuously improve services for children and families will be rooted in the best of practices, the most accurate and current data available, and with the safety and well-being of children and families as a fixed center of the division's work.

• We believe that all children and communities deserve to be safe.
• We believe in family, child, and youth-driven practice.
• We believe that children do best when raised in families.
• We believe that all children and youth need and deserve a permanent family.
• We believe in partnering with others to support child and family success in a system that is family-focused, child-centered, and community-based.
• We believe that how we do our work is as an important as the work we do.

Additional information about the Practice Model can be found at the Children's Services System Transformation Web site at http://www.vafamilyconnections.org/.