Child Welfare Policies

The Department of Human Services provides vital services to Maryland’s children and those who are most vulnerable among us. We simply can not do this important work without partners like our resource parents, who help us provide safety, well being, and permanence for children in out-of-home care.

To help support the efforts of our resource parents, the Department of Human Services and the Social Services Administration has established this website where foster care policies and other important information may be easily found in one place. New and updated information will be added regularly, so be sure to check in often.

If you require information about a policy, please click on it. It is there for your review. Sometimes the information may be complicated or you may have specific questions. Refer to the specific item, and ask your worker for an explanation or clarification.

We hope you find this website to be a useful tool. We want to take this opportunity to thank our resource families for all they do for our children and for their collaboration with the local departments of Social Services.

Youth Transitional Plan Orientation Video

As SSA continues the important work of rolling out Maryland’s Integrated Practice Model (IPM) across the state, it is important to ensure alignment across all Permanency programs, including Maryland’s Youth Transition Planning Process. To do this DHS/SSA has assembled workgroups with members from DHS/SSA, Chapin Hall, The Institute for Innovation and Implementation, and stakeholder groups to make necessary adjustments to Maryland’s Youth Transition Planning Process to better align with the IPM. As a result, there will be a Workforce Skills Lab for Permanency workforce, orientation video for Transition Age Youth in care, and an orientation webinar for stakeholders.

The video linked is the orientation video for Transition Age Youth in care. This video is intended to be viewed by youth, staff, stakeholders, essentially everyone that works with older youth.