About this desk

The Family Casebook is an independent editorial desk on family social services. It is written for the person who wants to understand how these services work: the adult weighing a first appointment, the family member trying to read a programme description, the volunteer who has just been handed a task, and the student who has to write about a field they have not entered yet.

This desk is not an agency.

What an entry contains

Each entry takes exactly one question about family social services. The answer comes first, before any background. What follows is written so a reader can jump to the part they need: what the service does, who it is for, how it is staffed and regulated, and what a person should expect at each stage.

A closing section names the sources the desk read. In this field those are the public programme descriptions published by agencies, the state and federal rules that govern a licensed service, and the published guidance of national organisations in the field. Where those sources do not settle a question, the entry says so rather than guessing.

The number and the date

An entry is numbered inside its rubric, so a reference such as CS-002 belongs to the second entry filed under counseling. It carries the date it was last checked, not the date it was first written. That date orders the front page, dates the entry in the feed and appears in the sitemap.