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Wake County social services outlines child-welfare continuum from prevention to permanency
Summary
Toni Pedrosa, Wake County's director of social services, gave a primer on the county's child-welfare work on March 2, describing prevention services, CPS intake and permanency goals and warning that placement capacity for older youth with complex needs remains a critical problem.
Toni Pedrosa, director of social services for Wake County, told the Health and Human Services Committee she was presenting "an overview of our county's child welfare program, and that's from prevention to permanency," describing prevention services, intake and assessment processes, and the county's goals for reunification and adoption.
Pedrosa said prevention became a mandated service for at-risk families under the Families First Prevention Services Act and listed supports the county offers, including respite, parent education, early-childhood development programming and referral help for benefits. "As far as prevention, we served, we had 87 cases closed in 2025. Only 3 percent of those cases escalated to CPS, and 84 cases closed without CPS escalation," she told commissioners, stressing the county's priority is to keep children safely at home when feasible.
Pedrosa outlined the county's child protective services workflow — a statewide structured intake with supervisory screening, investigative and family-assessment tracks, and response deadlines for immediate, 24-hour and 72-hour situations — and said multidisciplinary investigative assessments take up to 45 days. She also described permanency planning, including reunification as the primary goal and parallel efforts when reunification is not possible.
On operational challenges, Pedrosa urged attention to placement capacity, especially for adolescents (age 13 and up) with complex behavioral or developmental needs. She said the county is working with Blue Cross Blue Shield (the new statewide managed-care partner that began Dec. 1) to expand placements and with state partners to address staffing shortages at state mental-health hospitals. "We need an increase in foster care families, but mostly at the level 3 and above," she said, noting those homes serve children with more intensive needs.
