Social Service

The March 13 front-page article " In assault case, anxious parents recognize ‘dark side of autism'  " underscored a reality that haunts families like mine that are touched by autism. But it is not fear of violence. Rather, it is the demographic reality that children with autism quickly become adults with autism. As limited as research about young children with autism is, we know even less about adolescents and adults on the autism spectrum. No one can answer the questions of parents who worry: "Will my son...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A couple filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the state of South Carolina for what they say was an unnecessary sexual assignment surgery performed on a toddler they later adopted. Lawyers for Pam and Mark Crawford said Tuesday they were suing the Department of Social Services for having irreversible surgery performed on a 16-month-old child they eventually adopted and raised as a girl. The child was born in 2004 with both male and female genitalia and placed in state...

Prince George's nonprofit organizations, who form a large part of the county's social service safety net, were honored Wednesday afternoon at a ceremony in the office of County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D). The organizations cited are recipients of $185,000 in funds from the United Way that were specifically designated for organizations serving the county. A total of 22 organizations were awarded funds. Grants ranged from $7,500 to $10,500. A list of grantees is here.

RICHMOND, Va. — A city auditor's report accuses the Richmond Department of Social Services of using intimidation and interference to endanger the health and safety of children in order to reduce their numbers in foster care. Mayor Dwight C. Jones said the report issued Thursday to the city's audit committee was "painful to read," but he said children's safety won't be compromised. Right after the meeting, Jones announced the retirement of Social Services Director Doris D. Moseley and...

Tuesday May 1 Homestretch A nonprofit that provides transitional housing in Virginia. Annual Benefit Breakfast@ the Fairview Park Marriott in Falls Church. Wednesday May 2 Sitar Arts Center A community arts organization. Spring Celebration and Benefit@ at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Northwest Washington. Thursday May 3 Family Matters of Greater Washington A social service organization. The 130th Anniversary of Social Service@ the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Northwest Washington.

In Washington and across the nation, police are reporting an upsurge in "pack robberies" by juveniles who seek out victims on the street. Not only do they rob them, looking for cellphones, iPods or cash, but they also often beat them and sometimes leave them severely injured. As D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said in an Oct. 13 news story: "There's no need to beat people in those circumstances, but that's what they do. Just senseless. " This rash of youth attacks is reminiscent of the "wolf pack" attacks that plagued my home town of...

Marcia Ann Plater, 65, who advocated for moderate- and low-income families as executive director of Montgomery County's Community Action Agency, died Feb. 16 of ovarian cancer at Holy Cross Hospital. She lived in Silver Spring. Mrs. Plater, who directed the agency from 1985 to 2003, played a pivotal role in designing the county's first full-day, full-year Head Start program to meet the needs of low-income working families. She also led efforts to establish Montgomery's centralized food bank at the Manna Food Center.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has ended its 80-year-old foster-care program in the District rather than license same-sex couples, the first fallout from a bitter debate over the city's move to legalize same-sex marriage. Catholic Charities, which runs more than 20 social service programs for the District, transferred its entire foster-care program -- 43 children, 35 families and seven staff members -- to another provider, the National Center for Children and Families. Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6)

It has been my experience, both as a registered nurse and as a daughter who saw her mother through the difficult last seven years of her life, that it is not doctors who initiate the end-of-life discussions that have become so controversial in the debate over health-care reform ["The Truth About Death Counseling," op-ed , Aug. 21]. Each time my mother entered a hospital or nursing-care facility, my mother and I were approached almost immediately to develop a plan of care that included a do-not-resuscitate order.

Distributing friend connections across the web has been quite a hot topic in the Web 2.0 community as of late. MySpace , Facebook , and Google have all come out with their own initiatives for sharing social graph data with any number of websites. And there appears to be a struggle over just who will ultimately control the aggregated data - if anyone. So it may or may not come as a surprise that Gigya , a startup known for distributing widgets across social networks, blogs and other social media platforms,...

Prince George's nonprofit organizations, who form a large part of the county's social service safety net, were honored Wednesday afternoon at a ceremony in the office of County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D). The organizations cited are recipients of $185,000 in funds from the United Way that were specifically designated for organizations serving the county. A total of 22 organizations were awarded funds. Grants ranged from $7,500 to $10,500. A list of grantees is here.

Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) said Tuesday that he plans to use an expected boost in future District revenue to pay for affordable-housing initiatives and long-delayed raises for city employees. But he said he will not spend a budget surplus from the city's past fiscal year, disappointing advocates who wanted an immediate infusion into social service programs. Gray announced that keeping the $417 million surplus in the District government's savings account will build the city's reserves...

THE DISTRICT may not have made much progress this year in winning the right to budget autonomy or voting representation in Congress, but it made significant strides in showing its capabilities in managing local services. The decision by a federal judge to end court supervision of the transportation of special- education students is an important reminder of just how far the District has come from the awful years of an incompetent government that made a mockery of home rule. Declaring it a "historic" day, U.S....

Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large) has proposed substantial funding cuts to area social service programs and nonprofit organizations to ensure that residential real-estate tax bills remain flat next year. In a letter to supervisors, Stewart outlined $9.6 million in potential cuts that would significantly reduce funding for the county health department, the Juvenile Court Services Unit and substance abuse treatment for jail inmates,...

Fearing what could be devastating fallout for Fairfax County, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to set aside more than $8 million as a buffer against potential federal government cuts. The board also approved a $9 million bailout for the county's main social services agency, the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board, which is struggling to meet higher demand as the economic downturn drags on. Had the board not done so, the only option would have been major cuts to...

Some of Fairfax County's most vulnerable people, and the nonprofit organizations and charities that serve them, fear that a key social services agency's $8 million budget deficit could jeopardize programs for at-risk children and people with mental illness, intellectual disabilities and substance abuse problems. The widening shortfall at the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board, which provides services to thousands of people, has forced the publicly funded agency to freeze hiring and make some...

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) said Monday that the city is facing "a very alarming fiscal condition" because Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration has overspent this fiscal year by more than $200 million. His comments come as city leaders start looking ahead to budget deliberations in the spring, which could result in major service cuts the next fiscal year. Gray, a potential Fenty challenger in this year's Democratic mayoral primary, was responding to a briefing he and other council members received last week...

Heres an idea: If you're looking to build up your social site's user base, add support for a popular, similarly focused (but not directly competitive) social site to your network's iPhone application. It may sound crazy (who wants to promote someone else's brand?), but that's exactly what Radar , a social network for sharing cameraphone images and videos, is doing. This morning, Radar has released an update to their iPhone application which adds Flickr support to the mix. Though Radar and Flickr are quite similar in that...

Tuesday May 1 Homestretch A nonprofit that provides transitional housing in Virginia. Annual Benefit Breakfast@ the Fairview Park Marriott in Falls Church. Wednesday May 2 Sitar Arts Center A community arts organization. Spring Celebration and Benefit@ at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Northwest Washington. Thursday May 3 Family Matters of Greater Washington A social service organization. The 130th Anniversary of Social Service@ the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Northwest Washington.

Daniel Stid is a partner in The Bridgespan Group , a non-profit organization that provides advisory and consultancy services to philanthropists and non-profits. Stid leads Bridgespan's performance measurement practice. The following piece is the author's opinion and does not represent the views of the Washington Post. In his January 17th, 1961 farewell address President Dwight D. Eisenhower presciently warned of a growing "military-industrial complex," consisting of an elaborate network of stakeholders in both private...