Since 1977 when Annie opened on Broadway, theatrical artists have been portraying endangered youth who have experienced both maltreatment and engaged in delinquent behavior like Oliver Twist and Little Orphan Annie.

Oliver! and Annie, two of Broadway’s most iconic musicals, star two children caught between Juvenile Justice and Child Protective Services. 

When prisoners in the United States are released, they face an environment that is challenging and actively deters them from becoming productive members of society. Within three years of release, 67.8 percent of ex-offenders are rearrested, and, within five years, 76.6 percent are rearrested.

Criminals are Criminals

Recidivism rates (or rates of repeat offending) are often used as a measure of effectiveness of prison systems and post-release offender management programs.  What’s more, studies show that the general public believes - “once a criminal, always a criminal”. They see “ex-cons” as “criminals waiting to happen again.”

Case workers in Juvenile Justice have long been concerned about a subversive movement in the back halls of Congress and many state houses to erase any distinction between young offenders and adult criminals. As recently as the 1990s almost all 50 states overhauled their juvenile justice laws, allowing more youths to be tried as adults and scrapping long-time protections to help rehabilitate delinquent kids and prevent future crimes. Only ignorance of the history of juvenile justice in United States could be responsible for a now subdued but continued movement to “simplify” criminal justice by merging juveniles and adults together in the eyes of the law. May we take a moment to remind everyone how our juvenile justice system evolved to its present effective state.

In this video we walk you through how to navigate across the different screens and tools within the FAMCare case management platform. This tutorial showcases the ease and functionality of navigating our system.  Our goal is simple, we help you to optimize your day-to-day activities. This makes your agency more efficient so you provide superior outcomes for those you serve. 

Whether we're threatened by the second or the third spike of this persistent and deadly COVID-19 pandemic, parents are again faced with school closings and re-openings that have them confused and in doubt. Is their child better off at home being schooled on-line or attending their local brick and mortar school with their classmates and teachers?

Goodbye 2020...Bring on 2021

2020 will always be remembered as the year of the COVID- 19 pandemic. Not since the mid 14th century, when the Black Plague decimated one third of Europe’s population killing 75 million people and ushering in the Dark Ages, has the human race experienced such a natural disaster.

Hello 2021

Although the annual turning of the calendar page is only an artifice, one year giving way to the next seems to instill hope in the human heart. We make New Year's resolutions. We look forward to better times. We use our goals and desires for the new year to obliterate the past year's disappointments and pain. We believe the future will be better than the past. We have hope.

Increasing Demand…

Meals On Wheels, which delivers meals to the elderly in their homes and at senior centers, has seen demand for their services explode since the pandemic started.

• When COVID-19 hit, a staggering 89% of Meals On Wheels programs reported increased demand for meals, practically overnight.
• 79% of Meals On Wheels programs saw their demand double.
• Older adults who were mobile prior to the pandemic can no longer safely go to stores to buy their own food, and many do not have loved ones close by to help them through this time. Add this to the roster of seniors who were already homebound.

The nation's health care system is once again faced with overwhelming need pressing against limited resources. Medical professionals, including health care social workers, are forced to make hard choices that test the ethical boundaries of medical arbitrage. The scenarios below are all real-life situations communicated to GVT by health care social workers in the past month.

Paperwork is a dirty word in social services. Social work is not about keeping records, it’s about “hands-on” interpersonal contact with abused children, single parents, the neglected elderly, the abandoned homeless, and other vulnerable populations. As you might suspect, as social work became a more integral part of our society’s fabric, our social workers have been swamped by a virtual paperwork tsunami.

We recently talked to a child and family services case worker in Phoenix, Arizona who, contrary to popular opinion, shed a positive light on all this confounded paperwork.

During this national crisis, child welfare agencies are struggling to balance their mission to protect children from abuse and neglect with their duty to protect their workforce. The vast majority of children involved in child welfare cases live at home. Parents are often ordered to participate in certain programs (or requested to do so voluntarily), while caseworkers make regular visits to check on the situation in the home.