Thursday, July 16, 2009

Feds order Virginia to cease threatening special needs foster families to give up support services

Feds order Virginia to cease threatening special needs foster families to give up support services

Virginia DSS ordered by feds to change law regarding definition of "special needs" foster children by placement, which is in violation of federal law and has been preventing Virginia special needs foster children from accessing adoption support services as mandated by federal law. To qualify as "special needs" and receive services and financial adoption assistance children were required to be in the legal custody of VADSS or another child placing agency. VADSS workers reportedly used this law to force families to take custody of special needs foster children and agree to give up all support services, otherwise the families were threatened with losing the children they loved. This has been one of many nasty undercurrents of VADSS. The localities are not held accountable by the state since each local DSS office only answers to it's own board. Same problem with schools. Local agencies are not state run.

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