ASHLAND – As part of an ongoing effort to support Ashland County Job and Family Services in caring for children in the county’s custody, Ashland County Ministerial Association presented JFS with a $1,000 check Tuesday.
On behalf of the association, Jon Hall, a pastor at Grace Brethren Church, presented the check to JFS Director Peter Stefaniuk at a Tuesday’s Ashland County Commissioners meeting.
Hall said the churches became aware of a need for updates to the county’s supervision room for foster families and decided to come together to fund the project.
Commissioner Denny Bittle praised the local church community for stepping up to help meet the county’s foster care needs in recent years.
In 2016, local faith leaders formed Fostering Family Ministries, which works through churches to recruit foster families in Ashland County. Over the past two years, the ministry has helped the county nearly triple its number of foster families from eight to 23. The ministry also builds faith-based care communities around foster families to help them face the challenges of fostering children.
Currently, about half of the 66 children the JFS has placed in foster care are placed in homes within Ashland County, rather than in more expensive out-of-county placements, according to Stefaniuk.
This effort to keep foster children in Ashland County saves the county hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, commissioner Jim Justice said.
Stefaniuk took the helm at JFS in May, replacing Jim Williams, who was fired last December. Williams had replaced Cassandra Holtzmann after she was fired in 2016.
In a presentation to commissioners and the public at Tuesday’s meeting, Stefaniuk outlined the broad scope of the department and the challenges it faces.
“The system itself deals with managing over 100 programs, 50 major funding streams spread out over five fiscal periods,” he said. “We take direction from three federal agencies and five state agencies.”
Stefaniuk said his biggest challenge in his first month on the job has been learning the complicated system of how various funds can be used to meet the needs of individuals and families.
Stefaniuk said 75 percent of the people his department serves are children, senior citizens or individuals with disabilities. The department is responsible for public assistance, child and adult protective services, workforce development and child support enforcement.
The department helps thousands of individuals and families each year with programs ranging from job search help to assistance with things like food and heating costs.
Stefaniuk said his department handles, on average, 3,500 child support cases each year. It collected $8 million in child support last year.
As of the end of May, Stefaniuk said, the department had received 45 adult protective services referrals, eight of which resulted in investigations. Meanwhile, it received nearly 500 referrals related to child abuse and neglect and investigated 226 of those situations.
Stefaniuk said 147 children are in the custody of JFS. About 80 percent of those children are placed with family members, he said.
