About OCS: Keep Children Safe
A primary goal of the Office of Children's Services is to keep Alaska's children safe. In order to meet this goal OCS has implemented the following strategies:
Implement initial assessment training
By doing a better job of making an initial assessment after a protective services report is received, the Office of Children’s Services will further its goals of referring families for needed services, reducing repeat maltreatment, and providing help to families to prevent removal of children from their homes.
Assess and enhance supervisor skills
Supervisors have a critical role in assuring best practices and improving outcomes for children and families. The Office of Children’s Services continues to focus on enhancing management skills, leadership and accountability of supervisors.
Increase timeliness of initial assessments
Initiating initial assessments within prescribed policy and procedure timelines to assure the safety of children continues to be an important goal for all Office of Children’s Services workers.
Increase visits to child and parents
The goal for front-line workers is to visit every child and all parents a minimum of once per month. Meeting that contact standard will enable the Office of Children’s Services to better meet the needs of families.
Resource family assessment
A more comprehensive resource family assessment process eliminates delays when Office of Children’s Services licensing staff must match the needs of a child needing a placement outside his or her own home with a family that can meet those needs. And when a child cannot return home and the resource family is the right family to adopt, the already completed initial in-depth assessment will make the adoption process more efficient and timely.