Child Welfare Reform in Focus

A recent state review of Virginia’s child welfare system highlights persistent gaps in prevention and accountability.

While proposed reforms focus on oversight, the report left out two proven strategies shown to improve outcomes for children: strengthening families’ economic stability and providing multidisciplinary legal representation for parents in child welfare cases, which can hold local departments accountable.

Virginia has the authority to pilot these models using available federal funds, and at least one locality—Roanoke—has already laid the groundwork for a potential pilot, which is set to go- if Budget Amendments from Senator David Suetterlein and Delegate Sam Rasoul make it through the budget process.