Virginia’s Kin-First culture focuses on families for children and not children for families. Foster parents need to possess the time and energy to give to children and must be supportive of children’s ongoing relationships with their families. Primary requirements include but are not limited to:
Talk to the case supervisor and possibly the LDSS director about your concerns. If you don’t have the contact information for your LDSS, please see the LDSS directory. If your concerns aren’t being addressed, contact VDSS Constituent Complaints at 804-726-7000 or email: citizen.services@dss.virginia.gov.
Additionally, the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman (OCO) has statutory authority to investigate complaints involving children who are alleged to have been abused or neglected, are receiving child protective services, are in foster care, or are placed for adoption.
The intent of DSS is to support families to safely maintain children in their own homes or with relative/fictive kin caregivers in their own communities and support meaningful opportunities for the family’s voice to be heard.
Child Protective Services and In-Home Services provide an opportunity to work with families to assess strengths, needs, resources, and what services may be needed to ensure the safety of the child and prevent out of home placement. A Family Partnership Meeting (FPM) is held prior to a change in a child’s living arrangement or consideration of a child's removal from the home. This ensures that family, other natural supports, and community members are involved and can understand the available options to guide the decision-making process.
In-Home services practice, which is a type of prevention casework, also ensures that when children temporarily or permanently reside with relatives or fictive kin caregivers, services are provided to ensure safety and stability of that living arrangement. Regardless of where the child may be temporarily or permanently residing, this engagement involves maintaining a clear and honest relationship with the family, extended kin or family friends, and service providers who are working to keep the child safe and the family together.
Relative Maintenance Support Payment is assistance to families who are providing relative or fictive kin care to children to prevent entry into foster care. When families are receiving services and supports from LDSS, they may make safety decisions for their child(ren) to live temporarily or permanently with relatives or fictive kin caregivers in order to prevent placement into foster care. In these cases, the relative or fictive kin caregiver would be eligible for this available financial assistance.
To be eligible for this additional assistance, a relative or fictive kin caregiver must (as verified by the LDSS):
The pursuit of child support is not a requirement for the TANF/RMP (relative) or Kinship Care (fictive kin) categories for Relative Maintenance Support payments. If the child enters foster care and the relative becomes a kinship care provider as a foster parent, they are not eligible for TANF funding; however, they would receive foster care maintenance support on behalf of the child(ren) and may be eligible for Kinship Guardianship Assistance (KinGAP) or adoption subsidy if reunification with the parent is no longer the permanency plan.