T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK Belmont County Department of Job and Family Services Director Vince Gianangeli reviews additional programs and staff for the Children’s Services department.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — This year, the Children’s Services division of Belmont County’s Department of Job and Family Services will be able to offer more assistance to children after the recent release of the state’s biennial budget, which doubles funding for children’s services statewide.

“We got this additional funding,” Director Vince Gianangeli said, adding in February he met Gov. Mike DeWine, who expressed interest in doing more for child welfare with the biennial budget.

Gianangeli said for the State Child Protective Allocation for State Fiscal Year 2019, which ended June 30, Belmont County’s office received $444,602. For the fiscal year 2020, which will end June 30, 2020, the office received an allocation of $836,854.

“That’s an increase of $392,252,” Gianangeli said. “That’s one pot.”

A second fund is the kinship caregiver allocation, which has seen an increase from last year’s $71,504 to $89,005 this year.

“Those two pots alone are right around a $409,753 increase,” Gianangeli said, noting the kinship caregiver fund will help children placed with relatives to get new clothes.

“When we have a Children’s Services case regarding that child and their parents and we have (a family member) it is a kinship placement,” he said.

“The department held a similar event last year.

“We did a school clothes program basically … and we’ll probably do it again with this funding,” he said, adding that the amount to be spent has not been determined. Half of the allocation will go toward kinship daycare.

“When those kinship providers are working and need to take that child to a daycare provider, we can pay for that with that funding,” he said.

Meanwhile, the State Child Protective Allocation is also being put to use.

“We’re able to get our Children’s Services staff additional training with some of that funding. We’re able to enter into contracts with other county agencies,” Gianangeli said. He said his department will use $50,000 to partner with the Board of Developmental Disabilities to provide respite services for children with mental health needs.

“This will be somewhere for them to receive one-on-one support services,” Children’s Services Administrator Christine Parker said.

“It’s respite services for youth in crisis,” Gianangeli added.

The department has also added another supervisor to Children’s Services.

“For years, we have not had a separate supervisor over our intake unit and our ongoing unit,” Gianangeli said, adding that the duties were instead shared since 2009. “We were able to promote from within … We added a supervisor to the Children’s Services unit that we hadn’t had in years … Most counties’ Children’s Services have a supervisor separate.”

“We’ve seen an increase in our caseloads and an increase in our children in custody,” Parker said. “Children in custody used to be in the low 40s. Now we’re in the 60s … at any point in time … Two years ago we would have been 35 or 40.”

She said an ongoing case can last about a year. They often have drug related cases involving neglect and young children raised without foundational structures.

Former case manager Nicole Couch is now the intake supervisor, and an additional case manager has been taken on, growing the Children’s Services department from 18 to 19 employees.

In other matters, plans are still ongoing for the School Clothes for Kids: Gianangeli said they have taken in more than 1,200 applications and are determining eligibility. Last year had 1,800 children and Gianangeli is anticipating between that and 2,000 will shop at the Ohio Valley Mall Sept. 25-26.