moira weir

When the public discusses child support, especially pertaining to our agency, it almost always means the monetary support a non-custodial parent pays to the child. When we discuss it internally, we like to broaden the definition to include family/parent engagement. …

 Have you ever been in a position where you were unsure if you could feed your children? Fortunately, I have not. I cannot imagine how scary that would be. I can’t imagine the heartache of seeing hungry children look to …

Foster children aging out of Hamilton County’s child welfare system cost local residents $17.7 million in social expenses and lost productivity each year, according to a local financial impact study released today by the University of Cincinnati’s Economic Center and Hamilton County Job and Family Services. One program is helping reduce that cost.

The National Association of Counties has chosen a Hamilton County Job and Family Services’ program as one of its 100 Brilliant Ideas at Work, recognizing the program as one of the most innovative government programs in the country.

The Association recognized the county’s partnership to help food assistance recipients obtain long-term self-sufficiency through training and employment in the trucking industry. Hamilton County partnered with the state of Ohio and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service in a first-of-its-kind partnership that trained food assistance recipients to drive trucks, resulting in jobs paying more than $45,000 per year.

June is the month we hold our agency’s signature event – Celebration of Dreams – which is our biggest event of the year. On June 8 2017, we will recognize nearly 50 wonderful foster children who have overcome great challenges …

Update is our monthly newsletter keeping you up to date on what we are doing

Hamilton County’s Board of County Commissioners issued a proclamation Wednesday naming April Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness Month in Hamilton County and April 12 as Wear Blue to Work Day.

The proclamation was issued after commissioners heard from Director Moira Weir on the large increases in Children’s Services caseloads and the many abused and neglected children being served by the agency.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. This year, it comes with an extra sense of urgency in Hamilton County.
Our numbers are skyrocketing. We screened in 732 allegations of child abuse in the month of January, the largest monthly total in at least a decade. We screened in 699 reports during February. This followed a very busy last half of 2016, when we screened in 3,794 reports, 1,101 more than during the first half of the year.

The expanded Medicaid program is a frequent topic of discussion as our nation and state look toward the future on health care.

Whatever is decided, it will be our responsibility to implement it.

As a point of reference, we currently have more than 231,000 county residents in the Medicaid program and we spent $1,760,215,299 last year on delivering health care to Medicaid recipients.

We currently have more than 1,100 children in certified foster care. This might be the highest number in JFS history, certainly within the past 20 years.

On any given day, we have more than 2,100 children in custody. In addition to the 1,100 children in certified foster homes, the remaining 1,000 are children living with relatives or family friends, teenagers living on their own and preparing for life after foster care, or children living in residential centers, group homes or medical facilities.