Office Of Children's Services

Commitment

Family-to-Family is . . . a commitment by the Office of Children’s Services to improve the outcomes for children and families with an emphasis on safety, stability, permanence, and well-being.

Reducing:

  • The number of children placed away from their families;
  • The number of children in institutional care; and
  • The disproportionate numbers of Alaska Native children involved with the Office of Children’s Services.

Decreasing:

  • The time children spend in out-of-home placements;
  • The number of children re-entering placement; and
  • The number of moves children experience.

Increasing:

  • Reunification of children with their families;
  • The number of siblings placed together; and
  • The number of children placed in their own culture and community.

Goals of Family-to-Family


To achieve these results, the Office of Children’s Services is committed to the following
improvements:

    • If children are not safe in their home, help the family determine what they need to keep them safe and how they can access appropriate services;
    • Develop a safe, supportive and community based network of resource families (foster
      parents/relatives);
    • Place children with extended family when they can’t safely live with their parents;
    • Provide the services families and children need so they can be safely reunited as soon as possible;
    • Involve parents, foster parents and extended family as team members with our agency and with one another; and
    • Become a neighborhood resource for children and families.

Strategies

To achieve these changes in the child welfare system, the Office of Children’s Services is committed to implementing four core strategies:

Recruiting, Developing, and Supporting Resource Families:

Finding and maintaining foster parents and relatives who can support children and families in their own communities.

Building Community Partnerships:

Establishing relationships with a wide range of community organizations and individuals to collaborate and create an environment that supports families involved with Office of Children’s Services.

Making Decisions as a Team:

Involving resource families, caseworkers, community members, youth and their families in all placement decisions, to ensure a network of support for the children, and for the adults who care for them.

Evaluating Results:

Collecting and using data about child and family outcomes to find out where we are making progress and to show where we need to change.