The Orange County Department of Social Services provides temporary social service and financial assistance to eligible individuals and families, in order to help them lead safe, healthy and independent lives.

As part of that effort, Children’s Services strives to promote safe, permanent homes for Orange County children at risk of abuse, neglect, or out-of-home placement. Today’s child welfare philosophy and practice, and the laws which guide them, clearly focus on the preservation of families and protection and permanency for children. This approach is designed to remove risk from children, rather than remove children from risk.

Children’s Services, through our Adoption Unit, is part of a network that connects prospective adoptive parents with waiting children all across New York State. Our new web site, FosterAdoptOrangeNY.org, is the latest addition to that multi-faceted program.

Caseworkers are at the heart of our services, providing casework counseling to children, birth parents, and foster and adoptive parents throughout the adoption process. They work at preparing the children for adoption, recruiting families on a child-specific basis, and arranging for post-adoption services for both children and adoptive parents. Caseworkers strive to establish permanent homes for children with special needs. Adoptions of "hard to place" and handicapped children are subsidized with ongoing financial support and, often, medical assistance. Caseworkers also work closely with the adoptive families and Family Court in arranging for, and carrying out, necessary legal procedures.