The waiting room will have a fish tank. This seems like a small detail, but it isn’t — not when the children sitting in those chairs have just been removed from their homes, or are waiting to meet a foster family, or are testifying about things no child should have to describe.
Henrico County announced plans this week for a new Social Services building on Dixon Powers Drive, a two-story brick facility set to open in spring 2028. The county is calling it “child-friendly and trauma-informed,” bureaucratic language that translates to something more urgent: a recognition that the physical spaces where we process family crisis matter as much as the policies that govern them.
The new building will rise near the existing Human Services Building off Parham Road, in the administrative cluster that most Henrico residents only visit when something has gone wrong. Currently, the county’s child welfare workers operate out of offices that were designed for a different era of social services — before the opioid epidemic swelled foster care rolls, before pandemic-era disruptions sent child abuse reports climbing, before caseworkers’ filing cabinets overflowed into hallways.
Henrico’s Department of Social Services handles roughly 1,200 child protective services investigations annually, according to recent state data. Each of those cases represents a family in crisis, often a child who will spend hours in county facilities being interviewed, evaluated, and processed through a system that can feel as cold as it is necessary.
The trauma-informed design approach — which has gained traction nationally over the past decade — attempts to address this. It means softer lighting instead of fluorescent glare. Separate entrances so families don’t cross paths with the people they’re reporting. Interview rooms with comfortable furniture. Outdoor spaces where children can decompress. The fish tank in the waiting room, where a five-year-old can focus on something swimming instead of whatever brought her here.
Henrico isn’t the first locality in the Richmond region to pursue this approach. Chesterfield County renovated portions of its social services offices in 2019 with similar principles, and Richmond City has discussed comparable upgrades as part of its human services consolidation plans, though funding has remained elusive.
The Dixon Powers Drive location places the facility within the county’s government campus, convenient for the administrative staff who cycle between agencies but somewhat isolated from the communities that most heavily use social services. Public transit access remains limited in this part of the county, a persistent challenge for families who may not have reliable transportation.
County officials have not released a final budget for the project, though comparable facilities in other Virginia localities have cost between $10 and $15 million. Construction is expected to begin in late 2026.
The building will be brick, two stories, unremarkable from the outside. What matters is what happens within — whether a child who enters on the worst day of her life finds something that feels, if only slightly, less like a government office and more like a place where someone thought about her before she arrived.
- The new two-story Social Services building on Dixon Powers Drive is scheduled to open in spring 2028
- The facility will use trauma-informed design principles including separate entrances, comfortable interview rooms, and calming features like fish tanks
- Henrico County handles approximately 1,200 child protective services investigations annually