Fiscal Year 2004 Proposed Budget

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DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES
FAMILY PRESERVATION (FAMILY SERVICES TEAMS)

PROGRAM MISSION: To ensure the safety of child victims of abuse and/or neglect and avoid unnecessary placement of children in foster care by assessing, investigating, developing and implementing appropriate goal-directed and timely safety and service plans. Major goals of this state mandated program are to protect the safety of children; reduce the incidence and recurrence of child abuse and neglect; help children and families recover from the trauma of child abuse and neglect; and prevent foster care placement. Services provided to achieve the mission include individual/family/group counseling, crisis intervention, case management, protective supervision including court intervention, purchase of services deemed appropriate and investigation of complaints of child abuse and neglect for families being served. Families served include families with findings of child abuse and neglect; families whose assessed situations indicate the likelihood of child abuse and neglect occurring (e.g., domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness, cultural conflicts, etc.); adolescent mothers who are enrolled in the Alternatives for Parenting Teens Program; and other at-risk families.

Social workers that provide these services are assigned to one of the three newly formed Family Services Teams. Goal-directed service plans to ensure children's safety are devised and monitored by the Team. Services are geared to help families improve their abilities to adequately and safely care for children. Service plans are tailored to ensure children's safety and improved family functioning. Families are referred to other human service agencies when they have concrete service needs unrelated to child abuse and neglect. Team staffing include divisional mental health and violence intervention therapists. When placement outside of relatives is indicated to assure a child's safety, another social worker on the same team familiar with the situation provides the appropriate care and assures permanency.

Funding for Healthy Families Arlington, operated by Northern Virginia Family Service, had been consolidated in the Family Preservation unit effective FY 2002. Due to the reorganization of the Child and Family Services Division, the funding for this program is reflected in Divisional Management in the 2004 budget. Healthy Families is a community-based program that seeks to avert child abuse and neglect through intensive home visits to vulnerable families by family support workers. The weekly visits help new parents gain confidence in their abilities, develop positive parenting techniques, and become more self-sufficient.

SIGNIFICANT BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS:

• Nonprofit expenditures and state share revenues decrease due to the transfer of the Healthy Families Program contract to Child and Family Divisional Management.

• FTEs increase in FY 2004, reflecting the reallocation of a 0.5 FTE Social Worker position from Child Placement.

PERFORMANCE MEASURES:

Objective: To protect children by reducing the incidence or recurrence of child abuse and neglect and improving family functions so as to avoid the need for foster care placement.

• Targets are internally set.

• The average length of service has been three years. With the new team structure, efforts are being made to reduce the length of service while ensuring children's safety and improving family outcomes.

• There is an anticipated reduction in the number of non-child protective service cases because staff resources are needed to address high-risk family situations. For FY 2003 and FY 2004, referrals for low risk prevention cases will be made to appropriate community human services agencies.

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