Dean M. Sparks Executive Director

Thank you for visiting the LCCS web site. More importantly, we thank you for valuing children and your commitment to helping those in our community grow up happy and healthy.

Children belong in families. Moreover, they belong in permanent families. To deny them that is to rob children of their childhood. Our job at Children Services is to not only protect children who have been abused and neglected, but also to seek permanence for them.

Our wish is that all children live with their birth families. (In fact, less than 10 percent of the children we come into contact with have to leave their homes.) When children cannot live safely at home, we try to restore stability to the family so that a timely reunification can take place. But the reality is that some children can never return home and will be raised by a relative or will be adopted.

The bottom line is that whether it be with the birth family, relatives or adoptive families, we believe every child deserves a loving, nurturing home.

And this is a belief that requires a commitment from the citizens of Lucas County. One of our community's strengths is its neighborhoods, and we have begun to partner with the many family and neighborhood centers to better serve our clients. By utilizing these centers, we can eliminate many of the barriers (such as transportation and work schedules) to engaging the families we serve.

By having a presence in neighborhoods, we can encourage people to lend assistance when the family next door to them is in crisis. We can recruit foster and adoptive parents by neighborhood so children don't have to leave their schools and classmates.

It's an approach we call "family-centered, neighborhood-based" and one to which we are strongly committed. It is also one that cannot succeed without the commitment of our community. We are encouraged by the warm welcome this approach has received thus far, and look forward to working with the citizens of Lucas County to see that it is successful.

Sincerely,

Dean Sparks
Executive Director
Lucas County Children Services