Government
UMFS opens new $11 million residential center to enhance youth behavioral, mental health treatment
After an investment of more than $11 million, a longstanding residential treatment program that delivers trauma-informed care to youth working to overcome emotional and behavioral challenges has created a new multipurpose treatment center focused on healing.

After an investment of more than $11 million, a longstanding residential treatment program that delivers trauma-informed care to youth working to overcome emotional and behavioral challenges has created a new multipurpose treatment center focused on healing.
UMFS, a statewide nonprofit leader in child and family services, has officially unveiled the transformation of its Child & Family Healing Center (CFHC). The state-of-the-art center took a year to complete. Previously, youth enrolled in CFHC lived in five separate cottages, originally built in the 1950s.
The 33,600-square foot center includes five residential suites, each accessible by separate entrances. Designed intentionally to promote safety and complement program enhancements, CFHC’s five identical suites each have a common area, full kitchen, group therapy room, family room, meeting space, and 10 private bedrooms and bathrooms. The center, which includes office space for administration and staff, can accommodate 50 youth.
CFHC serves youth ages 11-17 who are experiencing mood and anxiety disorders, emotional, social, and behavioral challenges and other traumas. Therapists, mentors, teachers, psychiatrists, nurses and other staff support the youth who live on campus as they focus on healing and building life skills.
“The new Child & Family Healing Center continues our long tradition of excellence in providing effective, high-quality residential care for youth,” said UMFS President and CEO Nancy Toscano, Ph.D., LCSW. “We intentionally designed the space utilizing a trauma-informed approach to promote healing in a safe and affirming environment. The upgraded center will help create normalcy while respecting a child’s need for independence during treatment.”
The center is one of the state’s only youth residential treatment programs to employ a “hybrid” security model, where youth can move freely throughout each suite and have supervised access to school, green spaces, a gym and other recreation on UMFS’ 33-acre campus. For safety, the building is regularly secured from evening to morning, and staff can secure each suite on an as-needed basis.
The CFHC marks the completion of Phase 1 of UMFS’ Be a Champion capital campaign, which aims to transform the educational and residential resources on its Richmond campus. Hundreds of donors and partners have contributed to the effort so far.
Phase 2 of the campaign is underway and will include an addition to the nonprofit’s Charterhouse School, a specialized educational program for K-12 youth who have special needs. The planned addition will allow UMFS to enhance its student services and expand programs. Demolition for Phase 2 will begin soon, and UMFS expects to break ground on the school addition this spring.

Government
City hosting public meeting on replacement of Byrd Park Reservoir roof
The Byrd Park Reservoir was built in 1876 and has been serving the City of Richmond residents and surrounding counties continuously since then. The Reservoir operates as two finished water tanks. Upgrades and maintenance have occurred over the years to ensure peak operating capacity.

The City of Richmond Department of Public Utilities invites residents, commuters, and visitors who utilize areas around Byrd Park to attend a public meeting to learn more about the new phase of the Byrd Park Reservoir Roof Replacement Project. The meeting is from 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 23, at the Byrd Park Roundhouse at 621 Westover Road.
The Byrd Park Reservoir was built in 1876 and has been serving the City of Richmond residents and surrounding counties continuously since then. The Reservoir operates as two finished water tanks. Upgrades and maintenance have occurred over the years to ensure peak operating capacity. DPU is in the process of additional upgrades to improve the distribution system reliability and increase the operational flexibility of facilities associated with the reservoir. The concrete roofs are reaching the end of their useful life and will be replaced by two new aluminum roofs.
Construction will be sequenced to maintain the use of the park and will take place within a fenced area, with boundaries shifting as the work progresses. Access to the rest of the park and its trails will be open to the public.
Attendees of the public meeting can expect to learn more about the scope and review project plans.
For more details about this project, visit the project page here.
Education
Spots still open in academic ‘pandemic recovery’ program ENGAGE Virginia
There are still some spots remaining in a new academic program that aims to support Virginia public school students after the impact of COVID-19 on education, although a majority have been filled.

By Chloe Hawkins
There are still some spots remaining in a new academic program that aims to support Virginia public school students after the impact of COVID-19 on education, although a majority have been filled.
The Virginia Department of Education and Graduation Alliance launched “ENGAGE Virginia” last month. ENGAGE Virginia will help students with learning and attendance issues after the effects of the pandemic, according to a VDOE press release. It will “supplement efforts already underway in schools to meet the needs of students still struggling with academic, attendance and mental health issues,” stated Jillian Balow in a press release. Balow was the state superintendent of Public Instruction but recently resigned.
The program is state-funded and free to the public, according to ENGAGE Virginia’s website. Families who sign up will be assigned an academic success coach, according to its website. The coaches will help students in ways like to focus on their schoolwork, create resumes and refer students to local social-emotional support nonprofits.
The VDOE Office of School Quality is in charge of overseeing ENGAGE Virginia, according to Aurelia Ortiz, director of School Quality. This office “helps schools with school improvement,” Ortiz said.
The General Assembly designated $3.5 million for academic assistance to the VDOE during the 2022 session, according to Ortiz. After the pandemic, the VDOE had many concerns around student displacement, Ortiz said.
“After the pandemic we knew that divisions had concerns, which we were aware of, with student engagement, with chronic absenteeism, students that had fallen off the roster, students that they could not locate,” Ortiz said. “Students can’t be successful if they aren’t in school.”
Forty-two school divisions reached out to ENGAGE Virginia to sign students up, while 30 school divisions officially partnered with ENGAGE Virginia, according to Ortiz. Over 11,000 program spots have been filled out of the allotted 15,000, Ortiz said.
These spots are “tentatively taken” by the school divisions, which means each division’s needs vary depending on its size, Ortiz said. Parents can also reach out to their child’s school to ask for academic help.
“As long as there are seats available — which as of right now you can see by the numbers there are seats available — then they [families] would be eligible for the program as well,” Ortiz said.
ENGAGE Virginia offers a human resource in schools where those resources are lacking, whether that be through a social worker or school counselor, according to Ortiz.
“A social worker would make a referral for community services, the counselor would offer mental health support, a teacher would provide homework assistance,” Ortiz said. “ENGAGE Virginia will do all of those things wrapped into one to meet the needs of the families.”
The impact of the program should be multilayered, through mental and academic support and the link to community resources, she said.
COVID-19 created the largest disruption of education systems in history, according to a United Nations policy brief released in August 2020.
Parent Courtney Dean’s family had a hard time adjusting to the pandemic, according to Dean. Dean’s two children, 11th grader Carter and eighth grader Stella, are enrolled in Chesterfield County Public Schools, according to Dean.
The pandemic was “challenging” for Dean’s children, she said. It was tough for them academically, but they also missed out on a lot of “lasts,” Dean said. Her two children’s fifth and eighth grade school years were cut short by the pandemic, and they missed out on end-of-year events.
“She [Stella] was doing fine as far as learning in the virtual world at first,” Dean said. “But she had a really hard time focusing and paying attention to virtual because it’s so much more interesting to look around your bedroom and, you know, mess with things … many times I would find her asleep because she could.”
Stella also had issues with her Spanish class once she transferred back to in-person classes, Dean said.
Stella advanced to the next level Spanish class, but is retaking it because she needed a better foundation, Dean said.
“She started that when she was virtual and then it went back to a hybrid thing where the teacher was trying to teach both the kids that were there in person, like my daughter, as well as the kids who were at home,” Dean said. “For my daughter, it just didn’t work … to no fault of the teacher; it was brand new for everybody and she was doing her best.”
Dean’s son, Carter, dealt with more of an “emotional struggle,” she said. He worked over 12 hours a day on homework, from 7 a.m. to midnight, once things went virtual, according to Dean.
“He got to the point where he was just so exhausted from it,” Dean said.
Dean was not aware of the ENGAGE Virginia relief program, but said it seems like it will be “so helpful” for students who had a hard time adjusting to virtual or hybrid learning environments.
“You can’t stop the flow of learning for everybody,” Dean said, but some students might need more help outside of the class.
Parents can start the registration process through ENGAGE Virginia, here.
Downtown
Feds identify ‘significant’ ongoing concerns with Virginia special education
After failing to meet federal requirements to support students with disabilities in 2020, the Virginia Department of Education will remain under further review by the federal government after continuing to fall short in monitoring and responding to complaints against school districts, according to a letter from the U.S. Department of Education.

By Nathaniel Cline
After failing to meet federal requirements to support students with disabilities in 2020, the Virginia Department of Education will remain under further review by the federal government after continuing to fall short in monitoring and responding to complaints against school districts, according to a letter from the U.S. Department of Education.
“We have significant new or continued areas of concerns with the State’s implementation of general supervision, dispute resolution, and confidentiality requirements” of IDEA, stated the Feb. 17 letter from the Office of Special Education Programs.
The U.S. Department of Education first flagged its concerns in a June 2020 “Differentiated Monitoring and Support Report” on how Virginia was complying with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, following a 2019 visit by the Office of Special Education Programs.
IDEA, passed in 1975, requires all students with disabilities to receive a “free appropriate public education.”
The Virginia Department of Education disputed some of the federal government’s findings in a June 19, 2020 letter.
Samantha Hollins, assistant superintendent of special education and student services, wrote that verbal complaints “are addressed via technical assistance phone calls to school divisions” and staff members “regularly work to resolve parent concerns” by providing “guidance documentation” and acting as intermediaries between school employees and parents.
However, some parents and advocates say systemic problems in how the state supports families of children with disabilities persist. At the same time, a June 15, 2022 state report found one of Virginia’s most critical teacher shortage areas is in special education.
“Appropriate policies and procedures for both oversight and compliance, and their implementation, are crucial to ensuring that children with disabilities and their families are afforded their rights under IDEA and that a free appropriate public education (FAPE) is provided,” said the Feb. 17 letter from the Office of Special Education Programs.
While the U.S. Department of Education wrote that it believes the Virginia Department of Education has resolved some of the problems identified in 2020, including resolving complaints filed by parents and creating a mediation plan, it said it has identified “new and continued areas of concern” and intends to continue monitoring Virginia’s provision of services for students with disabilities.
Among those are ongoing concerns over the state’s complaint and due process systems that “go beyond the originally identified concerns” originally found. The Office of Special Education Programs writes it has concluded Virginia “does not have procedures and practices that are reasonably designed to ensure a timely resolution process” for due process complaints.
The department also said it has concerns over the practices of at least five school districts that are inconsistent with IDEA’s regulations.
The decision comes after the U.S. Department of Education announced in November that Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia’s largest school district, failed to provide thousands of students with disabilities with the educational services they were entitled to during remote learning at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Virginia is also facing a federal class-action lawsuit over claims that its Department of Education and Fairfax County Public Schools violated the rights of disabled students under IDEA.
Parents involved in the case said the Virginia Department of Education and Fairfax school board “have actively cultivated an unfair and biased” hearing system to oversee challenges to local decisions about disabled students, according to the suit.
Charles Pyle, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education, said in an email that “VDOE continues to work with our federal partners to ensure Virginia’s compliance with all federal requirements, as we have since the ‘Differentiated Monitoring and Support Report’ was issued in June 2020.”
The federal government said if Virginia could not demonstrate full compliance with IDEA requirements, it could impose conditions on grant funds the state receives to support early intervention and special education services for children with disabilities and their families.
Last year, Virginia received almost $13.5 billion in various grants linked to IDEA, according to a July 1, 2022 letter to former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, who resigned on March 9.
James Fedderman, president of the Virginia Education Association, blasted Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration after the findings were released.
“While the Youngkin administration has been busy waging culture wars in schools, his administration has failed to meet basic compliance requirements with the U.S. Department of Education for students with disabilities,” Fedderman said. “This failure threatens our federal funding for students with disabilities and is a disservice to Virginia families who need critical special needs support.”