Youngkin's Final Budget Includes $50 Million to Improve State Child Welfare System, Support Social Workers
Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner are urging the General Assembly to support the plan outlined this week by the outgoing governor.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Governor Glenn Youngkin will present his final budget to the General Assembly on Wednesday, and according to The Virginian-Pilot, it includes $50 million to fund a three-year plan to improve child welfare outcomes in the state.
Two major components of the Safe Kids, Strong Families plan are investment in the social services workforce, and standardization of the state’s currently fragmented Child Protective Services intake process.
U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner on Wednesday released a joint statement praising the plan and urging the Virginia General Assembly to support it.
“As former Governors, we know that Virginia’s economy and future depend on investments in the well-being of our youngest generations,” the senators wrote. “That’s why we are pleased to see this new proposal to meaningfully reform Virginia’s child welfare system and better support children and families. Turning this vision into reality is going to take determination and a strong commitment to bipartisanship, and we urge leaders on both sides of the aisle in Richmond to come together, embrace this proposal, and get it done.”
Youngkin’s plan would allocate $10 million towards raising the minimum salary for family services specialists. According to a November 2025 report from the Virginia Children’s Partnership (VCP)—which Kaine and Warner cited in their statement—the entry level salary for a social worker in Virginia is $37,000.
Social work “takes a toll, both personally and professionally,” said Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Janet Kelly this week, as reported by The Virginian-Pilot. “Family services specialists have a turnover rate of 44% every year … and vacancy rates (are) at 67% at some local Department of Social Services offices.”
The bulk of the $50 million investment would go towards building a statewide CPS intake system, staffed by 132 people. This would replace the current intake process, which is administered by local county and city social services departments and results in a fragmented system where outcomes differ widely across the state.
According to the VCP report, Virginia’s “state supervised, locally administered” system has been in place since the early 1900s. A report prepared in 1927 for Governor Harry Byrd recommended consolidating welfare activities in a central, statewide department.
“With every public welfare institution and agency functioning as an independent unit, and each board carrying on its affairs according to its own ideas, and to meet its own local needs, the general interests of the state as a whole have well nigh been lost sight of,” the 1927 report, prepared by the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, stated.
Consolidation never happened, and almost 100 years later, Virginia is one of only nine states in which child welfare services are still administered by localities. All other states have centralized or hybrid systems with stronger statewide oversight and accountability.
Virginia ranks below the national average in terms of child outcomes. According to August 2025 data from the Annie E. Casey Kids Count Data Center, 20% of children in Virginia’s foster care system age out without ever attaining a permanent placement—the highest percentage in the country.
Youth who age out of foster care have much higher rates of homelessness, joblessness, incarceration, early parenthood, and substance abuse, research shows.
Children in Virginia are less likely than they are nationwide to be reunited with their parent or primary caregiver. In 2023, 45% percent of children nationwide were reunited, while in Virginia just 27%, according to the most recent data from the Annie E. Casey foundation.
Virginia also has a higher rate of child maltreatment deaths involving children under age three than the national average, according to a 2025 report from the Family and Children’s Trust. Forty-nine children in the child welfare system died in Virginia in fiscal year 2025—with one of those fatalities occurring in Fredericksburg and one in Spotsylvania.
“Child deaths are increasing at an alarming rate and Virginia’s current lack of adequate coordination between state and local partners, low number… of case reviews, lack of accurate and transparent data, and lack of training and support for professionals does not provide an opportunity for effective… prevention,” the Family and Children’s Trust report states.
The VCF report compared child welfare outcomes in urban, suburban, and rural counties across the state and found that they “differed dramatically from one city/county to another” and that there was “zero consistency.”
Youngkin’s proposal also includes plans to integrate the child welfare system with behavioral health access, to prevent children from entering foster care due to parental substance use or mental illness.
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