The Administration of Children’s Services has announced the appointment of Charles Barrios, a licensed psychotherapist with decades of service at Good Shepherd Services in Brooklyn, as Deputy Commissioner for Family Support Services.

Barrios’ former employer, Good Shepherd, works with ACS and other city and state agencies to provide services and support to troubled youth and families. Barrios’ portfolio at ACS charges him with similar responsibilities, including the administration of a “wide range of programs that support and strengthen families, prevent child abuse and neglect, and reduce the need for foster care placement,” according to ACS.

Barrios replaces Elizabeth Roberts, who had served as Family Support’s division leader since 2006. (In another hiring do-si-do, Roberts moved from ACS to become the Chief Program Officer at Safe Horizon, a nonprofit agency with ACS contracts.)

In 2009, Barrios criticized budget cuts in his role as Good Shepherd’s Division Director of Brooklyn Preventive Service Programs. “The failure to restore the caseload reduction funds undermines the critical improvements that have been made to child safety, as well as the confidence the community has developed in the ability for preventive service programs to keep children safe and with their families,” he said at a City Hall protest, reported in the New York Nonprofit Press.

Barrios will need to address additional anticipated budget shortfalls in his new leadership role at ACS – from the other side of the advocacy table.