The Adult Services Program assists elderly individuals or other adults who have an impairment and need services or support to enhance self-sufficiency and improve their quality of life. Services offered may include:
~Home-based services (companion, chore & homemaker services)
~Adult foster care
~Adult day care
~Case management
~Nutrition
~Assessments for adults entering or residing in assisted living facilities
~Screenings for adults entering nursing facilities or who need Medicaid-funded home and community-based waivers
These services are provided by local departments of social services and are designed to help adults remain as independent as possible, preferably in their own home. The goal is to strengthen appropriate family and social supports and reduce the need for institutional placement.
APS investigates reports of abuse, neglect, and exploitation of adults 60 years of age or older and incapacitated adults age 18 or older. If protective services are needed and accepted by the individual, local Adult Protective Services social workers may arrange for a wide variety of health, housing, social and legal services to stop the mistreatment or prevent further mistreatment. Services offered may include home-based care, transportation, adult day services, adult foster care, nutrition services and legal intervention in order to protect the adult. Services may also be arranged for individuals in emergency situations who lack the capacity to consent to services.
To report suspected adult abuse, neglect or exploitation, call your local department of social services or the 24-hour, toll-free Adult Protective Services hotline at: (888) 832-3858.
The goal of Child Protective Services (CPS) is to identify, assess and provide services to children and families in an effort to protect children, preserve families, whenever possible, and prevent further maltreatment. Child Protective Services is non-punitive in its approach and is directed toward enabling families to provide adequate care for their children.
Local departments of social services are responsible for receiving reports of abuse and neglect; conducting investigations to determine the validity of the CPS reports; and providing services that enhance child safety and prevent further abuse and neglect to families and children.
CPS also develops statewide public awareness and education programs and administrates state and federal grants to prevent abuse and neglect.
The purpose of Adoption is to place children who have been permanently and legally separated from their birth parents with a new family. It is a social and legal process which gives new parent(s) the same rights and obligations as biological parents.
When you adopt, you expand your family by taking a child (or children) into your home as your own family member(s) and then care for and nurture them to adulthood and beyond. While foster care adoptions are the most frequent, there are several types of adoption such as international, stepparent, close relative, parental placement and adult adoption. This website is focused on foster care adoption.
Foster care is intended to be a temporary rather than a long-term solution for children who have been removed from their birth family homes for reasons of neglect, abuse, abandonment, or other issues endangering their health and/or safety. Every effort is made to help the child remain with his or her family, however, when a child comes into foster care they are most often placed in a foster home. The foster family works as a team with the local department of social services, the biological family, the child (when applicable) and any additional community partners.
The temporary and complex nature of foster care places special demands on foster parents. They are asked to take someone else's child into their home, care for the child and treat the child as a member of their family. The Foster Care Program provides the necessary support and training to enable foster parents to provide daily care and supervision for the child in care.
Title IV-E is a federal program designed to provide funding to states to ensure proper care for eligible children in foster care and to provide ongoing assistance to eligible children with special needs receiving adoption subsidies. The program is authorized under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act and it is funded by federal and state/local matching funds. Administration is handled by state and local public child welfare agencies.
It is a program under which the Commonwealth of Virginia is entitled to reimbursement for certain foster care and adoption expenses. Although there is no cap on reimbursement, it is limited to three areas and the funding formula is different for each:
1. Maintenance (e.g. room, board and transportation to visit parents and siblings)
2. Administration (e.g. eligibility determination and case management activities)
3. Training (e.g. training for child welfare staff and foster and adoptive parents)