UMFS Unwavering Champion Danielle Washington

June 26, 2018

Each month, UMFS recognizes one of our employees as the Unwavering Champion of the Month. This award celebrates the UMFS mission and how our employees bring that mission to life. Our mission: UMFS is an unwavering champion for high-risk children and families, collaborating with communities to help them reach their full potential.

Our Unwavering Champion for June is Danielle Washington, 30 Days to Family Specialist with Richmond Regional. 30 Days to Family is a grant-funded program that works to place children with stable relatives within the first 30 days of entering foster care.

Danielle is the only 30 Days to Family worker at UMFS. Her supervisor, Emily Clark, commended her as a kinship pioneer in Virginia. “She has taken so many risks and done so much to educate others about needed changes to policy and laws,” Emily said. Danielle’s efforts to build community relationships, Emily continued, have helped children connect with family they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to connect with. “She has taken a small grant and run with it.”

Danielle has worked at UMFS for more than four years, first as a Youth Counselor with Child & Family Healing Center, then a social worker with Treatment Foster Care, and now with 30 Days to Family. She has a “gigantic heart for all people,” Emily said, and loves her clients, their families, and all of her peers.

Since joining UMFS, Danielle has relentlessly pursued solutions for kids and families, and her work with the 30 Days to Family grant highlights her tenacity. She gets excited each time she connects a child with a relative. Danielle also is incredible at building relationships with her coworkers. She cares deeply about the work being done by her peers and is the first to jump in and offer support when someone needs assistance.

Danielle’s past year has been chaotic, Emily said, yet she’s remained steadfast in her mission as an unwavering champion for high-risk children and also has gone above and beyond in supporting her coworkers.