Parents, voluntarily giving up their kids. It’s a huge problem in Virginia and across the country. It’s called “relief of custody.” Hundreds of these cases have been filed in just the past five years in the Commonwealth.
What leads families to this choice is complicated and trying to prevent the cases also has major challenges.
10 News did a half hour special exploring who these families are, the age range of kids, why it is happening and prevention strategies that are working in northern Virginia.
You can catch up on that special here along with an article that breaks it down: watch WSLS 10’s Custody Crisis special
The top ten places in Virginia seeing relief of custody filings (listed in order of case numbers) are: Richmond, Norfolk, Henry County, Chesterfield, Virginia Beach, Rockingham/Harrisonburg, Roanoke City, Lee County, Bedford County and Roanoke County.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) got a study done that revealed across the country:
- Custody relinquishment occurs when children enter foster care primarily to receive behavioral health or disability services, not because of maltreatment, abuse or neglect
- As many as 25,000 foster care entries (5% of all foster care entries) might have been instances of custody relinquishment (Feb. 2017-Feb. 2019)
- The share of foster care entries that might have been instances of custody relinquishment across the country ranged widely from less than 1% to 18%. Eight states had 10% or more of foster care entries that looked like instances of custody relinquishment. (Virginia is 6-percent and West Virginia is 12-percent.)
- Large majority of children were ages 13 to 17, white, and male. Among foster care entries that resembled custody relinquishment nationwide, caregivers were mostly single, in their early 40s, and did not have their child removed to foster care because of their substance use.
We brought some of the questions you have to the people who see these challenges every day--- from judges, to people working with families, and social workers. Everyone trying to make it better and keep families together. They weighed in on what they’re seeing, why the system isn’t working and how we can better help these families in crisis.
The panel included:
- Judge Lee Chitwood from Pulaski County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court
- Renee Brown, President and CEO of DePaul Community Resources
- Gwen Coleman, Roanoke City’s Director of Human/Social Services
- Grace McCown, Roanoke County’s Children’s Services Act (CSA) coordinator
Judge Chitwood said a parent showed up at the courthouse with her six or seven-year-old girl, “anticipating to drop her off and that was going to be the end of it. So it’s a pretty tragic and horrific circumstance. It was this expectation that you could just leave your child with the court system or with DSS (Department of Social Services) and just walk away is pretty frightening.”
Judge Chitwood and Brown served on the Virginia Commission on Youth’s advisory group, that made recommendations on what the state should do to help in these cases. The group made more than a dozen recommendations including four bills that are on Governor Glenn Youngkin’s desk awaiting action.
Both say these are all small steps, but have the possibility of leading to bigger action down the road as the work isn’t over yet.
Brown says foster care is not the fix and we need flexible funding for families to access what they need instead of giving them a select few programs that are available for everyone that don’t fit what the family actually needs.
“We need to figure out ways to support our families before they’re in crisis. Obviously foster care is a safety net and it’s an important one that we have but we want to make sure that we’re supporting families and keeping kids in their communities and with their families whenever possible,” said Brown.
Brown added the outcomes for kids who enter foster care, “tend to be pretty bad. We see as adults, high rates of homelessness, incarceration.”
Roanoke County reports about 20-percent of the kids in foster care right now are relief of custody cases. For Roanoke City, it’s about 15-percent. These are high numbers and follow the trends of the western part of Virginia seeing higher caseloads of about 50-percent of the relief of custody petitions filed, despite only having about 20-percent of Virginia’s population.
These cases are costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
Last year, Roanoke County spent $12 million in Children’s Services Act (CSA) money to pay for everything from private day school, to facilities that some of these kids need, and community based services like therapy. The purpose of CSA money is to provide high-quality, cost-effective, community-based services to high-risk youth and their families.
“Financially it is a big strain,” explained McCown. ‘Most of the youth who enter foster care through relief of custody end up in a congregate care placement rather than a home-based placement and those placements are just by nature much more expensive and tend to go on much longer. It makes it difficult to put our finances where we’d like to, which is in more prevention work, more community-based services. Those not only have a higher rate of return for us for state money, but they’re more effective. They do a better job of keeping families together.”
In 2024, Roanoke County spent $2 million dollars on congregate care for children living in group homes and psychiatric facilities. Two of the eleven children were placed out state and were paid for exclusively through CSA money, with no held from Medicaid.
Roanoke County started putting an emphasis on preventing relief of custody cases recently and McCown said it is working about half the time.
“A lot of the times when we become aware of these children and families it is at that crisis point where there’s very little we can convince a family to try because they feel like they are just at the end. When we do have a little more time, and a little more ability to implement some resources and strategies, we have seen some success,” said McCown.
Roanoke City wants to do more prevention, but Coleman said they are mandated to focus their resources on abuse and neglect and that does not leave excess funds for other areas. They are partnering more with Blue Ridge Behavioral Health and the Court Services Unit to help families and coordinate services, while also making sure families are not getting duplicate services or being told different things.
“When you’re in crisis, when you’re dealing with all those issues, the last thing they need is to hit a barrier. Once they hit that barrier, that’s when families get to the point where they give up and that’s when they’re more likely to say, ‘I’m going to move forward with the relief of custody because I don’t know what else to do,’” explained Coleman. “We want to make sure we can intervene, come alongside the family and help them navigate the system because it is a difficult system.”
Coleman said Roanoke City has seen some success in the partnerships, talking about what’s best for the families with members of that family.
If you want to share your story about relief of custody, let us know! Email news@wsls.com
If you adopted a child and your family needs services after the adoption, there are options.
DePaul continues to be the lead Regional Post-Adoption Consortium Services grant holder with for all post-adoptive services supporting and strengthening families in the Western and Piedmont regions of the state (as defined by Virginia Department of Social Services). They provide case management, mental health support, and assistance with household items. Reach out at 888.233.7285 or visit depaulcr.org for more information.
Commonwealth Catholic Charities also subcontracts with DePaul to ensure we have capacity to serve families throughout these regions. More information about the services we offer and lead agencies for other regions of the state can be found on this page: https://www.depaulcr.org/rpacs/
