Virginia's Five Year State Plan for Child and Family Services (2020-2024) is a 5-year strategic plan that sets forth the vision and goals to be accomplished to strengthen Virginia's child welfare system. The goals and objectives of the plan must address improved outcomes in the following areas:
- Safety of children;
- Permanency for children;
- Well-being of children and their families; and
- Nature, scope, and adequacy of existing child, family and related social services.
This plan meets the required assurances and includes several additional plans. Those plans include: Continuations of Operations, Training Plan, Healthcare Oversight and Coordination Plan, and Foster and Adoptive Parent Diligent Recruitment Plan.
Since the CFSP process began in 1994, there have been five complete five-year cycles (FYs 1995 - 1999, FYs 2000 - 2004, FYs 2005 - 2009, FYs 2010 - 2014, and FYs 2015 - 2019). Each year, an Annual Progress Services Report has been filed updating the progress made on the plan. VDSS has coordinated the CFSP with the Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) and subsequent program improvement plan in order to improve the child welfare system in the State.
The principal goal of the CFSP - family and community engagement - provides the guiding framework for important practice changes put forth in the plan. VDSS is committed to the principles and values of the practice model that center around family engagement and is described in the Collaboration and Vision section of the plan. The practice profiles of the practice model were developed with the intention of placing engagement at the center of the 11 skill sets, recognizing that good casework practice is not possible without the fundamental skill of engagement. This supports the rationale for placing engagement as the center of the goal in the CFSP strategic plan, allowing VDSS to lay a firm foundation by prioritizing a focus on engagement.
As the 2020-2024 CFSP strategic plan took shape, several themes emerged: engagement with families and communities; implementation approaches to include the Three Branch model; continuous quality improvement; collaboration; and prevention to include Family First initiatives.
These five themes are highlighted and elaborated upon throughout the CFSP document, as these key focus areas have been identified in the root cause analysis as either gaps or areas needing improvement. The goals, objectives, and strategies related to these five themes will reflect attention to adaptive practices and change management, and follow a change management/implementation approach that is data-driven and grounded in continuous quality improvement principles.
