DCHS’s child and family-serving professionals are dedicated to supporting the community’s critical needs with children's mental health services, drug and alcohol prevention and treatment, early intervention, pregnancy prevention, youth development, child abuse prevention and childcare and education services. DCHS also offers a range of domestic violence and sexual assault prevention and recovery programs.

The Alexandria Youth Leadership Conference, hosted by the Youth Development Program, hosted 52 high school students in the eighth annual event, which empowers emerging young leaders through training and connection to community resources.  Adult and teen presenters covered such topics as mental health, self-care, activism and advocacy. To facilitate youth-adult partnerships, the conference featured a networking session with 36 community leaders.

Five new full-time School-Based Behavioral Health positions were funded to address the increase in youth mental health needs.  All positions were filled allowing expanded individual, family and group therapy at all Alexandria City Public School (ACPS) K-8, middle and high school campuses. The team also provides consultation and collaborates with ACPS on larger scale initiatives and during crisis response.

A survey in Child and Family Behavioral Health revealed that 97.5% of youth and families surveyed got the help they wanted, 99.2% percent were satisfied and 100% said they were treated with respect.

The 2025 Children and Youth Community Plan (CYCP) completed the first year of implementation. To engage the public on the progress of the CYCP, monthly “Report Cards” are published online​. Each Report Card helps tell a unique story about Alexandria’s children and youth. They include a result that the community is trying to achieve, data that illustrates how the community is doing, specific actions taken to improve the trend, the collaborators and measurements to show positive impact.

The Child Care Assistance Program implemented two new eligibility categories: job seekers and families with higher income who have at least one child under age five are now eligible to receive childcare assistance. Access to quality early childhood education for families who might not have been able to afford care and education is now available to more families.

Child Protective Services (CPS) achieved a 99.6% success rate for absence of recurring abuse of children at the end of FY22. This indicates that over the previous two years, 99.6% of children with a previous founded disposition of abuse/neglect who received services from CPS did not experience another finding of maltreatment. The state goal is 94.6%. CPS also conducted eight child abuse prevention trainings including mandated reporting and CPS procedures, educating 286 community members.

The Early Childhood Wellness team supported 50 family child care providers to participate in year two of the Virginia Quality Before 5 (VQB5) state initiative that will become a mandate in FY24 for all programs that receive public funding.

The Fund for Alexandria’s Child, within Child Welfare Services and supported by an advisory council of 10 volunteers, raised $115,000 for children in foster care and those at risk of out-of- home placement to participate in activities that help to normalize their lives, such as athletic teams, dance classes, holiday gift sharing, prom, graduation celebrations and transportation to jobs and medical appointments.

In the Child Welfare Services' Holiday Sharing Program, 415 individuals and groups sponsored 446 families with a total of 972 children, 96 older adults or adults with disabilities, and 107 children in foster care by providing them with gift cards for the holiday season.

The LGBTQ+ and BIPOC Equity Project utilized ARPA funding to support:

• 16 trainings for 169 service providers on creating affirming and inclusive services for LGBTQ+ people
• The creation of new by-laws and leadership roles for the LGBTQ+ Task Force
• A Transgender Day of Visibility workshop and the largest Alexandria Pride fair to date
• Development of the Sexual Assault Center and Domestic Violence Program Race and Social Equity Work Group for employees working to advance equity for survivors of violence 

RAISE, Alexandria’s Trauma-Informed Community Network, increased awareness of Aversive Childhood Experiences (ACEs), trauma, and resilience by delivering 21 workshops to 545 community members.  RAISE allocated $1,000 in mini-grants to five local organizations for creating trauma-informed spaces and developed and administered a Collective Community Capacity Survey that assessed Alexandria’s capacity to reduce ACEs and promote resilience and healthy childhood development.

Learn more about services for children, youth and family and domestic violence and sexual assault programs, the CYCP monthly report cards and the Trauma-Informed Community Network, RAISE.