Family Services in Howell County, MO

Image Copyright State of Missouri Social Services

There has been a great deal of confusion recently over how to contact the Social Services office in West Plains. After Googling the number, I found that the number that came up is actually for the Child Abuse and Neglect Division rather than the Family Services Division.

To break it down a bit better:

The Children's Division is basically child protective services. They investigate hotlines on child abuse, child neglect, they provide family resources for parenting, they license foster parents and help facilitate adoptions through the foster care system.

(Children's Division is also not connected to Child Support Enforcement.)

The Family Services Division provides help with food stamps, medicare, medicaid, mohealth.net, TANF child care, and disability.

However, these divisions used to be one large department called the Aging Division.

While the divisions have been separated for several years, no one has updated the sponsored ad on Google that shows the phone numbers for Family Services. The ad still says Aging Division.

So I have submitted an update to Google to hopefully fix this problem and thought I would post a note for anyone who might need the phone numbers that I found.

For Family Services Phone:  (417) 256-7121 Option 2      Fax: (417) 256-3473

For Children's Division:        (417) 853-4325                     Fax: (417) 256-7128