Delaware Code Title 29 Sec. 9001 – Intent and purpose
(a) The General Assembly finds and declares that parents have the primary responsibility for meeting the needs of their children and the State has an obligation to help them discharge this responsibility or to assume this responsibility when parents are unable to do so; while the State has a basic obligation to promote family stability and preserve the family as a unit, and protect and safeguard the well-being of children through the provision of a comprehensive program of social services and facilities for children and their families who require care, guidance, control, protection, treatment, rehabilitation or confinement.
Terms Used In Delaware Code Title 29 Sec. 9001
- Child: means a person who has not reached the age of 18 years. See Delaware Code Title 1 Sec. 302
- Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
- State: means the State of Delaware; and when applied to different parts of the United States, it includes the District of Columbia and the several territories and possessions of the United States. See Delaware Code Title 1 Sec. 302
(b) The General Assembly hereby declares that the purpose of this chapter and the policy of the State is to achieve the consolidation of services to children, youth and their families within the jurisdiction of a single agency in order to avoid fragmentation and duplication of services and to increase accountability for the delivery and administration of these services; to plan, develop, and administer a comprehensive and unified service delivery system to abused, neglected, dependent, delinquent and mentally ill or emotionally disturbed children and youth within a continuum of care, which shall include the involvement of their family, within the least restrictive environment possible but consistent with the child‘s health and safety; to emphasize preventive services to children, youth and their families, in order to avoid the costs to the State of individual and family instability; and to create and maintain a developmentally appropriate, comprehensive program that fully integrates transitional and independent living services from ages 14 to 23 and that will assist youth with their successful transition into adulthood.
64 Del. Laws, c. 108, §§ ?1, 14; 71 Del. Laws, c. 199, §§ ?7-9; 79 Del. Laws, c. 185, § ?2; 83 Del. Laws, c. 300, § 2;