Alaska Legislature: Joint Social Services, 3/26/26, 3:30pm

This meeting of the Joint House and Senate Health and Social Services Committee will now come to order. It is 3:32 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, March 24, 2026. Excuse me, Thursday, March 26, 2026 in Davis 106. Members present are Representatives Procs, Mears,

Roughridge, Fields,

Gray,

and myself,

Representative Mina, Chair,

as well as Senators Meyer,

Giesel, and Chair Dunbar.

And we also have Senator Clayman joining us telephonically. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum to conduct business. Please take this time to silence your cell phones for the duration of the meeting. Staffing the committee today we have Andrew Gianotti as our Health and Social Services Recording Secretary, Kyla Tupo, our LIO Moderator, and Katie Giorgio, my committee aide. If you need anything during the meeting, please don't hesitate to get her attention.

Thank you Madam Chair, I just want to know for the record that Senator Tobin is excused.

Thank you, Chair Dunbar.

Today we have a joint presentation from the Citizens Review Panel as well as response to their annual report by the Office of Children's Services.

This is an annual presentation that we have had in the Health and Social Services Committee and I would now like to welcome Chair Richenda George Bettysworth,

the chair of the Citizens Review Panel.

up to the presenters table to begin her presentation.

Thank you so much.

Hello everyone. My name is Rotena George Bettesworth and I am the Chair of the Citizen Review Panel. I reside in Fairbanks, Alaska. Thank you to the committee for their time today and I just want to recognize my two panel members that's joining me in the room, Rabbi Abram Goodstein and Colin Underwood, who are both in Anchorage.

Just to provide a little bit background of who I am, I am in my sixth year of being on the panel, and this is my third year as Chair. I'm a Clinical Professor of Social Work at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and my professional practice area has been in child welfare, and so I've done a variety of things over the past 20 years.

So today I'm going to be introducing the Citizen Review Panel, providing some background on its formation, purpose, and functions, and giving a preview an overview of our annual activities. Then I'm going to share recommendations from our 2425 annual report and walk you through our two phase work plan process and focus areas for the current year, the current fiscal year 26.

As you may know, Congress created Citizen Review Panel as part of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act to help child protection systems be more responsive to community needs. CRPs are a mechanism of public participation in child protection, and they are intended to facilitate robust and meaningful participation by citizens to promote the health and collaborative child protection system.

So Federal mandate states, the CRP should examine the policies, procedures

procedures and practices of state and local child protection agencies and evaluate the extent to which the agencies are effectively carrying out their child protection responsibilities. Conduct public outreach to assess the impact of current policies and procedures and solicit

Public comment on the panel's recommendations. State mandate similarly states that the panel shall evaluate the extent to which the department is effectively carrying out its child protection responsibilities under the state plan as submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Social Payment Services, child protection standards under federal and state laws, and any other criteria that the panel considers important to en to ensuring the protection of children.

So the Alaska Citizen Review Panel was formed in 2002. Uh per Alaska state regulations we seat between five and nine members. We are currently accepting applications for a fifth panel members. Um information can be found on our website if you know anyone that would be a good fit for the panel, please do or refer them to us. Uh membership on the panel is voluntary and expected to reflect the state's diversity. OCS created a coordinator contract

Um in two thousand six to assist the panel in coordination and administrative functions. This allows for the panel to be autonomous of from O_C_S_ in our pro evaluation of the child protection services.

And the panel has three primary functions. First, as previously mentioned, we evaluate the ex extent to which state and local child protection system agencies in Alaska

or effectively carrying out their child protection responsibilities. Uh the C_R_P_ is independent of O_C_S_ but it has strong collaborative relationships with O_C_S_ both entities work closely together to target specific goals in relation to systematic challenges in Alaska's child welfare system. It is important to note that the C_R_P_ does not intervene in individual cases. We look for patterns that emerge across multiple cases to make recommendations aimed at improving the larger system.

The second primary function is conducting public outreach and collecting opinions of various constituencies on the child protection system, and the third primary function function is conducting appropriate advocacy actions to help improve Alaska's child protection system. The CRP does not lobby, we educate about our activities and priorities as state board.

And just to provide an overview of the of um the activities that we do each year, we start with um the al the annual work plan. Our fiscal year starts in July one. So we began each year by coming together as a group to establish our priorities and create our annual work plan. O_C_S_ leadership joins us for part of that meeting and shares what they're working on and their their perspectives on the biggest challenges.

We have monthly meetings that are open to public attendance via Zoom, and include a public comment period. The date, time and Zoom registration information is announced before the meeting and posted on the CRP's website and the state of Alaska online public notice website. Um noted from each meeting can notes from each meeting can be accessed on the CRP website uh on the work on our work products page.

Our federal mandate also requires that we meet on a quarterly basis and we use this as an opportunity to discuss progress on our work plan. Um due to the geographic dispersion of the CRP members and a focus on accessibility, meetings are held remote via Zoom. And then all quarterly meetings again are open to the public participation.

So the work plan activities depends on the focus area we've selected for the year. Uh last year the panel's efforts were focused on meeting with subject matter experts in the areas mandatory reporting and out of home placement, which we're gonna discuss in detail in the upcoming slides.

Um most years uh the CRP travels to Juneau to present uh to legislators, as we have done in the last few years. Um additionally members do attend the national citizen review um

panel conference uh in order for us to have the opportunity to connect with others that are doing similar work in other states and learn what is going on um across the nation.

And finally we gather for our annual meeting to close out our year. At this time we review our work for the year and develop the recommendations that will be published in our annual report. Once drafted we solicit public and feedback on our report, which is then finalised and distributed to OCS and um policy makers across Alaska. So OCS is required by uh by a federal mandate to provide a written response to those recommendations.

And this is a captive mandated activity for the panel and OCS.

Sorry, I did not flip that. Um the twenty four five annual report was distributed on June thirtieth, twenty twenty five, and these findings and recommendations were focused on mandatory reporting and out of home placement and can be found in the annual.

Both documents can be found in your meeting packet. The C_R_P_ carried out significant research and information gathering focused on the area of mandatory reporting. That included coordinating with O_C_S_ in data collection,

reports from subject matter experts, and a critical review of mandatory reporting curriculum. So from this process, C_R_P_ found several findings to help advance the efforts.

To inform our recommendation recommendations to improve mandatory reporting in Alaska. So, mandatory reporting training is not standardised, leading to inconsistent information and varying requirements across professional professions and organizations. This lack of consistency creates confusion and reduces the training effectiveness.

There is no clear ownership for regular review and updating of the mandatory report training, which limits the ability to implement improvements.

The training s the training adequately describes what abuse and neglect looks like but are very broad and may not meet the needs of distinct user groups. And ultimately a normative shift is needed. Uh protecting children isn't just about reporting abuse but to also prevent it. Communities and reporters should be equipped to recognise early signs of stress and have the tools to help link families to particis to support before harm occurs.

And

So based on CRP's work and identifying findings, the panel made the following recommendations in last year's annual report. Mandatory training should be standardised into one curriculum for Alaska that is open sourced and accessible to organisations and trainers.

The updated training process should be informed by mandated mandated reporters across the state of various professions, OCS staff and individuals with lived experience who can provide input on updates, additions and identifying shortcomings. And ownership of the design maintenance of the curriculum and implement and implementation of it as well as how and when it needs to be evaluated should be clearly defined.

While the panel panel took a deep dive into mandatory reporting um last year, we also began our education and knowledge building process in our second area focus area of out-of-home placements, which is broadly defined and multi-faceted. And to help narrow our focus panel requested data from OCS to review.

and consider. Highlights of the data requested include uh what practices are currently in place to support family reunification, how do our re unification rates compare as measured against federal standards,

How many kinship placements occur in the past five years and how many are licensed versus unlicensed? What are some of the different requirements for licensure for kinship versus non kinship placements?

Um how long are your children placed in temporary non-foster settings and what is the process for assessing safety and screening others in the home before placing a child?

Um for residential placements we asked for data related to uh children placed in

Yeah.

placed in treatment facilities in both state and out of state. So this data was received at the beginning of this year's work plan um year and helped inform the work we're doing currently which I'll briefly touch on.

Um so we did wanna just make sure that

Sorry, I'm terrible at this, flipping. Um so we did just wanna briefly remind everyone of our process uh of work plan development. So during our strategic planning process that happened in July twenty four, the C_R_P_ adopted a new structured approach through a two-year work plan that's updated annually.

And starting last year, the panel identified and prioritised focus areas critical to improving child welfare services in Alaska. So the work plan um cycle now spans two years, and each priority is organised into two phases.

Phase one is education and knowledge building. In this phase the emphasis is on deepening the panel's understanding of the selected child welfare topics. The cycle begins with panel selecting key focus areas that will guide us in our efforts over the next two years. Phase two is action and im implementation. Building on the understanding gained in phase one, this phase focuses on translating knowledge into actionable strategies and adjustments

initiatives to address identified issues within the focus area. This phase may overlap with phase one activities as the panel moves forward with specific actions to improve the child welfare practice.

And as progress advances, previous years may be built upon or other priorities may be identified. The panel will provide recommendations to the Office of Children's Services in its annual report.

So within this new structure process and our work plan spanning two years, mandatory reporting, we are currently in phase two of our process. And in phase two of our process we've moved into action and implementation. So we've continued to advocate for training improvements and community engagement around mandatory reporting in this year's work plan.

In out of home placement, and out of home placement refers to the temporary care arrangements made for children who cannot safely remain in their homes due to safety concerns. We continue in phase one in this focus area. The panel analyzed existing data on out of home placements, focusing on placement stability, timelines of placements and long term outcomes for children in care and collaborated with OCS and service providers to understand the different placement types

including kinship care, therapeutic homes and foster care. So as we move into our annual

as we move into our annual report development phase, we're going to be looking to identify strengths and gaps in the current system, and given Alaska's diverse populations, the panel will prioritize understanding the role of culture and community connections in out of home placements. So phase two of this focus area will include action and implementation, which will begin in quarter

four of this year, as we consider recommendations for this area for this year's annual report.

And during our initial work on mandatory reporting last year, it highlighted the work we had done previously regarding screened out cases. So those are those cases that do not meet the criteria for investigation.

And we identified that the next focus area will be on diversion. So diversion is connecting families to supports without unnecessary involvement with the child welfare system.

So we look forward to working with OCS to identify options for this focus area and specifically work towards identifying the legal barriers and confidentiality issues related to direct support.

So this spring we're going to continue to develop a set of our recommendations based on our work in these focus

areas and prepare our annual report, which will include actionable steps for OCS to consider that will be out to the legislature by June 30th of this year.

And I just want to finish off as I state every year when I've been before this committee is that improving the well-being of Alaska's children

and the child welfare workers does not stop and start with OCS. It takes everyone working together to improve the child welfare system in Alaska. And at this time I welcome any follow-up questions. Our contact information is also in your packets. Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation. I want to note for the record that at 3:35 PM Representative Schwenke joined us. Do we have any questions from the committee? I first saw Representative Ruffridge.

Yeah, thank you Chair Mina. I have a few questions, but I'll start with just the first one. In these recommendations and findings,

how do you go about these? And what I mean is how do you go about determining what your findings are? Is that through interview process?

Is that through just talking with OCS? Because mandatory reporting we've had a number of hearings both in the

Through the chair, Representative Ruffridge. If I can ask a clarifying question, are you asking how we come up with our findings for the annual report or how we identify our focus areas? How did we identify our focus area of mandatory reporting?

Yeah, probably both of those.

Through this chair.

I would say that mandatory reporting came up because it's actually a national conversation that's happening across the nation about mandatory reporting and the appropriateness of it,

how it's actually helping or harming children.

So being aware of that conversation and truthfully I can't

quite remember the specifics of why uh outside of that why that became a specific area of focus um that we identified. Um I think one of the c one of the main things actually is that we were really looking at screened out processes last last year, previously, to mandatory reporting. Um

And so that actually naturally came through after looking at screened out processes because how does screened out processes happen? A mandatory report is made and then uh families are screened in or out of the system. And so we were actually finding that a lot of families were getting screened not a lot, that that families were getting screened out of the system, which meant that they were not getting any form of services or connection. And there was a lots of questions about what happens.

is once for mandatory reporting occurs. So mandatory reporting just sort of came out from that.

Just a follow up, thank you. So I'm just going to maybe connect a couple dots and you can tell me if I'm right or wrong.

So, you said that you attend a national conference once a year. So you went to a national conference. The conference said we'll talk about mandatory reporting nationally. And you came back and then decided that that was the finding for the state of Alaska.

Through the chair, Representative Ruffridge.

We have not actually been to a National Conference. I've never actually been. I will go for the first time this upcoming June. I believe that a couple of our other members had previously gone, but last year they actually did not have a conference set, so as far as how we are informed of the national conversation happening, a number of us represent different

fields within, you know our panel is very diverse. So there's lots of different backgrounds in our panel members, and quite a few of us have child welfare practice somewhat within our background. How we're involved, so

that recognition of what's happening nationally is actually part of some of the work that we do and that is where that awareness came from.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Senator Myers and then Fields and then Rep Prax.

Uh thank you Madam Chair. So you mentioned that part of your process, you called it action and implementation. Obviously you're an advisory body, so there's a limit to those words a little bit there. Um but I'm just curious

How you would characterise your body's relationship with O_C_S_ and what their response has generally been over the last few years, if they've been welcoming, if they have been, you know, interested in implementing the things you're recommending, if there's been a lot of pushback, um,

Mm-hmm.

you know, uh uh largely ignoring your your findings, et cetera.

Mm-hmm.

Through the chair, Senator Myers, my apologies. I've been on the panel for six years, as I stated. I believe that the work that we have done over the past six years that I have been on the panel has been very collaborative. And we had

previous to the change in our structure of how we were doing work that I provided a brief overview on, we were actually having monthly meetings with OCS and we were working with them pretty closely. And the work we did previous to mandatory reporting was really focused on workforce retention recruitment. We really focused on that for about three years solidly.

And I would say that a lot of that work was very collaborative with OCS. They identified it as a need.

We identified it as a need as we continue to look more into things.

So I feel like we have had a very collaborative process.

They have been very open to our recommendations. They've been very open to answering questions and data collection and all of these things that we've requested.

Whether or not they have been supportive or able to follow recommendations to what we provide in our annual report.

We understand that there that, you know

I wouldn't say that there was anything in my recollection that they were clearly refusing of or clearly denied, so I wouldn't say that it was

a divisive relationship in any way. There definitely are times when, you know, we feel as a panel that some things seem more complicated than they need to be.

But we do try and understand that perspective.

Okay, thank you.

Representative Fields.

Thanks. I just wanted to ask, maybe we should consider doing a committee bill to advance standardization of mandatory reporting and make it clear who owns the training program so that someone's accountable and it's consistent. And just wanted to

put that out there as an idea for committee members maybe to discuss. And I think Facing Foster Care might have some input on that as well. So we would have multiple stakeholders contributing to it. And I didn't know if Ms. Bettesworth had, George Bettesworth had input on that.

Through the chair,

Representative Fields, thank you for that comment. I think that anything that supports the standardization of mandatory reporting and really clearly identifying who's responsible for that would be helpful.

Representative Prox and then Gray.

Yes, thank you. Through the chair,

the

there is a mandatory, well, yeah, there is a mandatory training program

on the OCS website somewhere.

But when you say standardized, I would think that would be the standard for the state. Is there some national standard that wasn't being followed or was this just not implemented in some sort of standard way?

Through the chair, uh representative Pac, thank you for that question. Um there are two s

state available trainings. Um so there's the O_C_S_ uh C_J_A_ task force uh training that is available on the website and then there's the deed training that's specific to educators.

Uh what we found out um is that the mandatory reporting law actually does not say that anyone needs training um explicitly. And so it really depends on your agency or organization uh if you are actually required in your employment to do the training. Um

So that in itself is an issue, but there's differences between what OCS's um training is versus what deeds say, right? And that that is specifically because it's geared towards two different populations. You know, the deed one is specific to educators, so they're focusing more on what education uh responsibility looks like. Um and then the other one is more broadly uh for the public.

Um so um understanding that there's differences in that we know you know we know that but um what we're concerned about is that there's no like agencies can provide

um their own training for O_C_S_ or for mandated reporting. You can also ask O_C_S_ and from your local office to provide a training for your um agency, um or you can just provide no training at all, right? So there's just no consistencies across the board. And what we're suggesting is that there is a p a p a very uh standardized template of everything you should know in a mandatory reporting training and provide. And there should be some flexibility in how people

um can utilize that, that idea of like open access. Um

it c it could be adapted potentially for meeting the needs of certain consumers.

Okay.

Paul?

Paula,

so I believe you said your degrees was in social work.

Yes.

Would

Hmm.

University, I would think they would be involved. But

somewhere somebody needs to come up with collaboris collaboration collaborating, whatever they do.

And it

d and I'm just thinking mechanics, but everything that we did was really traceable back to

national standards.

The national standard for a pound is sitting in the Library of Congress or somewhere under a glass dome.

Uh and then all of your instruments are calibrated to that.

It's a lot easier to do when you're talking about mechanical things and not human beings, but there still should be some

gold standard for training.

Through the chair, Representative Prox, it's important that each state has a training that meets the needs of the state and are appropriate to the state. And each state sort of deals with their child welfare systems uniquely differently. But we did look at various

mandatory reporter training in other states to do a comparison of what other states were doing versus what we were doing. And what we found was that the training was very broad in identifying child abuse and neglect. And there was ultimately some confusion as to what the expectation was after you made a report.

So some providers felt like when they did the training there was indication that they would

get a call back first of all and let them know how the actual report outcome was. That doesn't happen. There was also confusion about whether or not OCS, once a report was made, they were going to be providing resources to families. That doesn't happen, right, especially if they're screened out. So there is confusion in that way.

Additionally, one of the things that we saw in some of the other state mandatory reporter trainings that I think would be beneficial to our state as well is where people can access resources to help families, right? So, okay, if you're making a report, your obligation is done, but

maybe you should also reach out to other resources to provide some additional information to the family. So

we would also like to see that occur as well in the mandatory reporter training, just additional information that families can clearly reach out to if they have concerns for children. Because again, we don't want the discussion of mandatory reporting to be 'a report's been done, your job is done,' but 'a report's been done, we have concerns for the family, so what else can we

do?' Right? Because, again, it's not only OCS's job to make sure that children are safe, it should be everybody's job.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Follow up, just a comment on that. I agree.

Now I said I took the training, and I don't know whether it was under DEED's website or the Office of Child Services. So, yep, there needs to be standardization, and

it was just

over the Internet. I think there were some videos or something and then I believe there was a test. And I passed the test.

And when I was done with that I thought, whoa, you're not going to find me involved with any children's organization ever again. And then from the reporting information that I get from

from the Office of Child Services, there's

gosh, on the order of fifteen thousand or something. There's lots of reports

Mm.

and not much screening in, and then very few further down to removing a child from the home, which is a really serious thing in my mind.

Mm-hmm.

But then I think, and we might want to get some comments from Director Kwei, that they were getting

several

children through

through the process, reporting more than, you know, two or three times, and then finally they decided, well, we got to do something about that. And I might be way too flippant about that. But I definitely agree

that there needs to be some improvement in that. And the other, we had some hearings,

I forget it was boys and girls sports or something like that, but we had some hearings that had to do with schools.

Mm-hmm.

And just from the testimony, it was clear that the educators weren't following what I understood to be the mandatory

reporting. They

They were mentioning that smoking in the boys room was the biggest problem, and that would seem to be mandatory reporting,

and they were kind of ignoring the problem. It is how it came across to me. So uh yeah, definitely do think work needs to be done, and when do you plan to have this done?

Through the chair, is that is that a question?

I'm sorry, yes, through the chair.

Mm-hmm.

As I as I had stated, we are continuing to advocate for changes to be made, and I'm sure Director Weil will discuss where the updates. It's my understanding that there is a process in place right now that updates are being looked at to be made for the mandatory reporting training, not necessarily you know what we're recommending as far as a

standardized process that gets input from stakeholders on what is also needed in that training.

Representative Gray, thank you.

Thank you. I have a couple of questions, Madam Chair.

Through the chair to Dr. George Batisworth, on the finding about reporting, the reporting process could be improved to include a feedback loop with mandatory reporters. Can you describe what an ideal feedback loop would look like with mandatory reporters? And then also what it looks like currently in Alaska?

Okay.

Oh.

I

Through the chair, thank you uh Representative Gray for that question. Um currently my understanding of the feedback loop is that there really is not one. Um mandatory reporters will make a report but there is no um no systematic way in which O_C_S_ will call back the reporter and provide any information. Um whether it was screened in or screened out um.

No information is is brought back to the reporter um unless the reporter calls back and continues to ask questions. Um I

we didn't look necessarily at um the standardised process for other states on how they actually deal with their mandatory reporting um beyond the training. And so I can't speak to what a standard, like a standard sort of gold star um process would look like. But I think that there just needs to be clarity on what reporters can expect when they make a report and that's very unclear.

Um you know, we recognise that there is that workforce shortage, so it might be very impossible for um O_C_S_ to return five thousand phone calls about a report that's been made. Um but it does seem that that um that there should be some process

that reporters don't feel like they're just sort of hanging out there, which is a sense that we've gotten quite a bit from uh reporters is that, you know, we've made five calls and we don't see any change and the kiddo's still at home and we still have concerns. So, you know, what is actually happening. And that's the frustration that we hear from folks when, you know, it takes seven times before an action happens.

Follow-up?

Follow up.

Thank you. So um

based off representative Prox, what he said, and and I may get this wrong, but it's what I heard, um this idea that maybe a fifteen year old boy is smoking in the bathroom and that would require a report. I think that would be a case where feedback from

from a mandated f feedback from the system would say actually that's not reportable. And sending us lots of reports of kids smoking in the bathroom is actually flooding our system

Mm-hmm.

and um those are not investigatable. That's not appropriate use of the system. On the other hand I could imagine a health care provider who sees a seven-year-old, suspects neglect and abuse, reports a year later sees the exact same kid, sees the exact same signs,

signs of neglect and abuse, does a report again, here's nothing back. The third year they see that kid with the exact same signs of neglect and abuse.

not going to do a report.

They've done it twice and nothing happened.

Mm

And

-hmm.

so that leads me to a question of mandated reporters who aren't reporting.

Say for example you have these jaded health care providers who've seen signs of abuse over and over again, have submitted reports and never heard anything back and never had any reason to believe that any intervention has been done.

I assume the way you would catch those providers, for lack of a better word, is that if another healthcare provider sees them, you know, a month later and saw the same things and then reports and then you see that that person had been seen over and over, are there any consequences to mandated reporters who aren't reporting?

We

through the chair. That's a great question, Representative Gray. There is no real system in place to hold those accountable. I think there's a fear from mandated reporters, especially those clearly identified in law, that if they don't make a report that somehow they're going to get in trouble. But there is no clear way in which to do that, so

no, I mean, I think that answers the question that you had. There's no clear way to hold anyone accountable if they don't make a report, unless there's clear connection between say a child death and a report not being made from someone, right? So maybe in that sense, in that example, maybe there's accountability that happens, but

no.

Final follow-up?

Follow-up.

Thank you, through the chair.

I would just double down on, I think, having an effective feedback loop in which someone makes a report and then they hear something back.

Either they get feedback that this was an over-report, don't report a 15-year-old smoking in the bathroom,

Mm-hmm.

or we went to the home, we saw that there was food in the refrigerator,

that the clothes were washed,

that this child is getting

good enough care, and therefore we are not intervening at this time.

Mm-hmm.

That at least the person making the report feels that their report is being read by someone at some point, and then they're willing to keep doing that, I mean I think that that would be a major improvement to the system.

Through the chair, I would just also add that, you know, training mandatory reporters when you speak about

whether or not a 15 year old smoking in the bathroom is reportable, I think that's also part of the gray area of what, you know, we're concerned about with the training is that it's very unclear when you make a report, right? The law basically says that if you have a suspicion of child abuse and neglect, that that is when you are mandated to report a suspicion. But what does that mean?

Right. We don't. Everyone comes with their own biases of what caring for kids looks like. And we know that poverty doesn't necessarily equal neglect, but we get lots of reports that are exactly connected to that, right? So having a training that is a little more explicit on what's reportable, what's not reportable, what signs are really

critical to be looking for when you need to make a report. I think should all be part of that process.

Next we have Senator Kiesel, then Representative Ruffridge and Representative Prox, and then we'll start to transition to the next hearing.

Thank you, Madame Chair. Um so I am a mandatory reporter. Um

I've been a nurse in Alaska for 52 years and a nurse practitioner for 26 of those.

It's not easy to make a report.

This isn't, this is not an academic judgment.

When you're looking at a child and a parent

to make the judgment of this, is this really abuse. So um so it's it's a little troubling for me to listen to some of the um some of the discussion here because none of this is easy.

And it's not easy on a couple levels.

First of all, it's really a judgment call.

It's not, as I said, academic or clinical necessarily.

And knowing that I will be reporting to an agency that is understaffed and underpaid.

So I better make sure that what I'm reporting is in fact a legitimate report.

You to also talked about kids that are screened out and is that a is that a deficiency by the Office of Children's Services?

And and I would point out that perhaps it would be

good to be aware that many of our communities have non-profits that serve those families that are screened out, but who need additional help. And I'll just cite one that I've actually volunteered for and that's Beacon Hill Safe Families for Children in Anchorage.

This organization exists to keep children out of

government foster care which is not a good system that's not what government should be doing so so to assume because a child was screened out that nothing happened may not be true

There may in fact be getting better services because they're being helped by families in that community that can actually help that family without threatening them.

When you put a child into foster care,

you take them out of a family,

that family feels threatened.

They're fearful.

So that makes a whole different family dynamic.

For the rest of the children in that family,

for the parent or parents, you know, in any case, this feels like we're reducing it to an academic procedure, and it is not.

It is a very, very difficult thing to be a mandatory reporter.

And to think that training is somehow going to make it easier,

I'm going to tell you something that does not make it easier.

Thank you Madam Chair

through the chair thank you for that um comment senator um and absolutely I agree I agree that um it is not easy and it is very hard to make that report and to make that judgment um I do believe that if you're better educated on when you should and what to look for it at least helps in the process um I would also say that uh you know we do we don't assume that screened out means

means that everything's okay. Uh when we looked at the screened out processes um la two years ago, um you know it took seven screen outs before OCS took action on a family. Um and um whether or not that's

okay is not really the question. Um and that what that's that is what's leading us to move into our next focus area which is diversion, right? Because one of the things we found was that when families are screened out there's no ability for OCS to actually refer them, even if there's you know when we talk about screen out, it just means they haven't met the level of need to actually instigate an investigation, right? It doesn't mean that

that nothing has happened or the children are not in harm's way in some sense but they haven't met that level of need. So you know when we were looking at that OCAS has no process or ability to refer those families to other services even if they recognize that they're they're in need right.

outside of the tribal compact and native and indigenous families.

That's the only time in which they can actually refer those families to tribal entities because of the compact.

Outside of that they can't do anything with those families. Um they can't refer them to services, they can't indicate to agencies, hey can you call these families and offer services. Um they can't call back to the mandatory reporter and say hey this family might benefit from x y and z, right. Um so

So that's where our focus is going to be looking at in those diversion.

What can happen to ensure that families that don't meet the level of need to get into OCS can still get services?

Because yes,

there is absolutely non-profit organizations doing great work out there in communities,

but who knows that,

right?

Do all the families that need those services aware of those services?

Many families, there's lots of stigma around accessing help.

Right. Um and that that's a whole another issue. But um the reality is is that many times people just don't know that services are available to them or are resistant to services.

Thank you. We now have representative Roughridge, Prox, and then we'll transition to our next presentation. We're looking to stop at five p.m. today. Representative Roughridge.

Yes, thank you Madam Chair. And I actually have just a uh a couple of questions. Um I feel like we need to get down into the nitty-gritty of things here a little bit. You've said a couple of things uh here that that uh give me a pause. Uh the one of them you just said.

Um what is the level of need to quote get into O_C_S_ I think we have a misunderstanding of what O_C_S_ actually is. This is not a service organisation. This is an organisation in which as Senator Giesel very aptly described, they come in at the very end of the process, and the thing that they do is

not offer services really. They're not a service organization. And and I want to go back to what your mission is. And it's why I asked earlier about uh how you came up with the finding of of mandatory reporting being the thing. I'm going to read to you from uh your annual work plan.

You as an organization shall evaluate the extent to which O_C_S_ effectively fulfils its child protection responsibilities under the state plan submitted to U_S_ health and human services under the child protection standards. The table of contents from that state plan are as follows.

And they th they list in order. And I'm just gonna read the first couple words of each line. Children are. Children are. Children have. Families have. Families have. Children receive. Children receive.

This is my fourth year doing this. It's your sixth. I have asked every single year.

One question.

And I don't see it in this report. Again, the fourth year. How are the kids doing?

'Cause we've all spent a lot of time on this issue. We've had hearings on the weekends, we've had hearings in these committees and budget committees. And I see in front of me again the citizen review panel report. We are not talking about kids again.

Again, four years, no kids. And guess what? I don't think the kids are doing great. And the OCS workers aren't doing great. Nobody's doing great. And then I see we're going to work on mandatory reporter training.

I don't think that that's unnecessary,

but I don't know how that rose to the number one thing that you wanted to report to the Senate and the Health and House Health and Social Services Committee today.

I I'm c I'm shocked. We just had a hearing on House Bill one fifty one which has been in order to be implemented for seven, eight years. I went back in four of these review panel presentations, not once did we mention the implementation of House Bill one fifty one.

Which to me is

Your mission, to ensure that OCS effectively fulfils the child protection responsibilities under the state plan. So my question for you today is what would you say to a foster parent who is listening, a child who is in care, or a parent who is seeking to be reunified with their children? After the last few years of your work as a citizen review panel, what has changed for them as a result of your work?

for the better.

Through the chair. Um

Representative Roughridge, um I appreciate your uh question, I and your commentary. Um

I don't know that I can give you an answer that you can be satisfied with.

I think that we worked very uh diligently on the workforce issue and uh we worked on that for three years and, you know, I can say that

trying to address all of these pieces um our

hope, you know, our hope is that by addressing all of these pieces within the system, it is gonna make children and families better. I don't have data to prove that.

Um

so

I think that the work that we've done um is beneficial and I don't think that anything in this child welfare system is immediate. I know that it is a very complex system, it is steeped in and created in a very um complex, difficult

uh and in many ways unmanageable, right? There is no child welfare system in the nation that does a good job. That doesn't mean that um

I

Again, it's not just the child welfare system,

OCS,

that's responsible for the health and safety of children.

If we had more additional services,

additional organization,

additional understanding as a community, as a society,

that everyone has this responsibility,

then maybe we will see clear change. But unfortunately,

we don't have that, right? We expect...

that OCS is supposed to like make everything better, but this is complex. And this

this is very difficult. And so, you know, I'm I'm an educator, right? I educate social workers to go into the field. And one of the things I tell them is that you're gonna get burnt out really quick if what you expect is to see clear change uh immediately in what you do. And you can't expect that because families are complex, children are complex.

And the system is complex. It's one, it's convoluted. There's all kinds of things that are very uh confusing for the n the normal everyday person to understand. So if you're caught into that system, you're obviously um gonna have real difficulties uh in navigating it.

And even people that are educated are gonna get caught in that system, and also have uh problems navigating it.

So um

So everything that we have done, I believe, is a step closer to ensuring that children and families are better. Um

And I don't think that you can make, even if H.B. one fifty and one was immediately um

put in place. That doesn't mean you would see immediate change. It will take time to see the work of that uh bill um

see positive outcomes, because you're dealing with uh folks that have had um complex issues, right? And you're dealing with a system that continues to have complex issues. So I don't think that even if that bill was in place today that we would see immediate clear change in the w welfare of children.

Just a final comment, if I may.

Final c please be brief,

Please, be brief, not a

question.

Okay.

Yes, um I I disagree and um I think that uh you're talking to a group of people here who do not expect immediate change. I feel like I've been patient. I feel like four years is a long time. Uh House Bill one fifty one was passed in twenty eighteen. That is not a short time. I don't expect immediate results. I expect at least an understanding that

Frankly, I don't think this is all that complicated. Like we might make it complicated, I don't know why, but um I think that there are, as Senator Giesel I think said very aptly, there are families that struggle, and I think that there are kids that are sometimes stuck in the middle of that. And I think that it is our responsibility as uh

as a society to take that somewhat seriously in um an O_C_S_ is at the very end of that.

It is not the cleanup. And your re s and your and your mission is to just evaluate if O_C_S_ is effectively fulfilling their responsibilities. You're not your responsibility is not to fix the whole child welfare

Mm-hmm.

system. It's to say is O_C_S_ doing their job?

And I think we all asked the question, is it going well? And we all came up with the answer of no. And then I don't ever see anything from my citizen review panel that says you know what, it's uh that's a big struggle in there. And here's some things that we recommend. So I don't know I don't know if I'll be on this committee a year from now, but I'll say the same thing I said for the last four years.

If you are sitting there next year and I will be watching, please, please I beg of you, can you please tell me about the kids? I would really like to know and families and how OCS is meeting their mission. Thank you.

Thank you.

Final question, Representative Prokos.

Good conversation. Difficult conversation. I certainly appreciate

what Representative Ruffridge is saying,

Mm-hmm.

Senator Giesel is spot on.

Director Guay has been to my office with some folks from Beacon Hill.

Um

The system is broke from beginning to end.

I don't fault. And imagine this, an instructor telling people that are interested in this, you're going to get burned out. I'm sure you don't like to say that. And I've listened in on a couple of your meetings and frankly, I should listen in on more of them because I can tell that your folks are dedicated to doing something good here. But it is just broke from beginning to end.

And I've tried to talk to different church groups and I guess I have to warn them that, you know, we got to think about this because you don't want to just jump in. I was involved with work with children when I was attending a church in Fairbanks and I took the mandatory training after that.

And I should have been reporting every day. And there's a church right now in Fairbanks that has a clothing store, and they take in donations and give food boxes to school children every Friday. And the school is reporting, if you will, those

children, not to OCS, but to the families saying there is help. But they're going outside of what I understand the mandatory reporting to be. All of those teachers, according to the course that I took, should have been reporting all these cases to OCS.

And they're not, as Rep. Gray reported.

I mean, it is just. I'm not faulting anyone. There are a bunch of people that are trying on this. But we need to sit down and not have me just listen in every once in a while. That's kind of my fault. And then here we are, you know, pass the bill. Well, we've got 385 other things to think about.

It ain't gonna work. We're not gonna be able to do this in the 120 days that we're down here

every other six months.

It's gonna take just a lot of conversations.

Um

There we go. So question. To make it worse, we passed another bill

on sexual trafficking. And there were specific questions that we mandated that

the intake organizations ask.

And when it gets to that level, what I hear

from quite a few places is 80% of the folks that show up at these youth shelters are trafficked.

I still can't. That's a small percentage of the whole problem. But even at that, I can't believe it.

Mm-hmm.

And yet apparently that's true. I mean, we got a huge, huge, huge problem.

I don't know. I think we should all resolve to spend more of our off time

thinking about this and getting involved in that.

Including me. So

don't be afraid to call.

Thank you for the feedback, Representative Proks. I'm going to move to Representative Fields briefly, and then we do need to transition to the next presentation.

Who?

Thanks.

Thanks, yeah, I

kind of agree with Representative Ruffridge that the biggest problem with OCS is not mandatory reporting. But at the same time, I think we actually have the most ability to fix what we know is the biggest problem with OCS. So I appreciate the Citizen Review Committees

advice. And I think that we kind of know what we can fix, which is largely pay and benefits and OCS. And that's more on us than the Citizen Review Panel. So I would see their recommendations as augmenting the foundation of what we know is only in our power to fix.

Thanks.

Thank you, Representative Fields, and thank you Chair George for your presentation and for the Citizens Review Panel. It's an all volunteer board, so I really appreciate just your time throughout the year. And this hearing is not the only opportunity for legislators to en engage with the Citizens Review Panel. They do have regular meetings that people can participate, and you can reach out to them. Uh and I believe your next annual report comes out on June

June thirty F_ and so please take a look out for that. I would now like to invite Director Kim Gway up to the presenters table to respond to the citizens review panel recommendations from the office of children services.

Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Kim Guay and I'm the Director of Office of Children's Services. Thank you for the opportunity to talk today. I wanted to start with my appreciation for the Citizens Review Panel. We appreciate our partnership with them. We try to work very collaboratively with the CRP specifically. So I'm going to go into a little bit today about mandated reporting and what it looks like as far as our intake numbers.

And a lot.

A little bit more of a deep dive and maybe to answer some of your questions as they were popping up in the last presentation.

This is for fiscal year 2024. And as you'll see, we had 21,205 reports that came to our centralized hotline. That hotline is a 24/7 manned

unit within the Office of Children's Services. Of those reports, 15,053 were by mandatory reporters. So the large portion of the people reporting are mandatory reporters. You'll see here it's broken down by who is reporting.

And you'll see our largest reporter are educators, followed very closely by law enforcement.

The statute requires people to report suspected abuse and neglect to the Office of Children's Services. We house this information, but we don't have jurisdiction on investigating all abuse and neglect. And so what I mean by that, our statute allows us and mandates us to investigate abuse and neglect by caregivers. So for example if a child was abused or neglected at a neighbor's house,

we would not be involved in that allegation of, or that allegation of abuse and neglect, but we collect that information, we document it and we send it to law enforcement if it's a law enforcement case. So

a lot of people believe because there's a lot of screen outs that means things aren't done with those screen outs, when in fact, many of our cases go to law enforcement or they go to tribes. And so we try to give that information to other people where, where appropriately allowed to do so to make sure that those are followed up on.

I'm going to jump to

2025. It does not look much different. In fiscal year 2025 we had 21,512 reports received at the Office of Children's Services.

Hmm.

Same type of information as far as who's reporting, what that looks like.

As I mentioned, we have, we share our protective services reports or intakes with our tribal partners. They have the inherent authority due to their sovereignty to have that information. So when we know who the tribe is or the tribal organization, we share that information.

Senator Dunbar has a question.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dunbar.

Chair. Uh on the previous slide,

This is a comment and then a question. This to me is such a powerful argument for education funding. I mean clearly we've put education personnel on the front line of this issue. And I'm wondering

You know the the previous presentation we were talking about both under-reporting and over-reporting. And, you know, the accuracy of reporting and reporting at the right time in the right way seems like uh important for you and important for these families and important for the reporters too, but it occurs to me that as we increase class sizes, it becomes more and more difficult for educators to get that personal relationship with kids so that they can make accurate reporting.

of reports when the time is right. So I'm wondering if anyone has ever done a study on that, a regression analysis. It seems like a natural experiment you could do. We're about to increase, uh you know, we're about to increase class sizes by four kids per classroom in Anchorage. Hopefully we won't, but if it happens, I wonder if you could do a before and after regression analysis to show it might not lead to fewer reports, but it might need lead to the less accurate reports, and that's something

Mm-mm.

Mm.

you your office could do, if they matched up changes in class size to the accuracy, what you perceive to be the accuracy of your data, and run a regression analysis on it.

Maybe Iser could do it for you.

Chair Dunbar uh I think that's a great point of like looking at uh those correlations. Um we would probably have to get some outside help for that. But that's definitely something that uh would be interesting to look at and track. Uh we do notice um you know we can find where a lot of our reports are coming from. There are what we would call hot spots, especially in the Anchorage area. Uh and so we do know that they're, you know, it's

That's typically our title one school, so that we get the most number of reports from. Uh and so then working on

Yeah, we we are not I did appreciate uh representative Refridge uh when he was saying like we are further down the road, right? So if the example of um someone smoking in the boy's bathroom, that would not be something that we would get involved in unless of course uh he also was a fire starter and you know the parents I mean there would have to be other attributing factors to something like that. So

The question is, what do the schools do before OCS comes involved, right? There's there's a lot of opportunities where we need to help support families and children um before they come in our front door. And so yes we receive some of this information. And I don't know, is that educators? Like they have a full time job educating. Should they also be

mm.

And I don't know that. I'm not a I'm not a school teacher, I don't work in the schools. But how do we help families? Where uh where's the community in helping the families um and so I think that's part of the solution here is a continuum of care.

for for in our education and for our children uh overall. And I think that's part that's missing. And I think some people think that OCS should be all things to all people, and we cannot do that, uh obviously. Uh so we focus on the children who are unsafe or they're abused or neglected. So it's other folks need to fill in the other part of the continuum of care uh more so.

So a follow up.

Just briefly, Madam Chair, I I agree with the notion that I should say it's an open question whether or not we should rely so much on educators to be this front line, because they have a full-time job. What I can say, I think definitively, is if we make that job more stressful, uh they have less prep time, they have less time to to provide personal services to the children, I think it impacts their ability to

to do this, this additional thing that we've put on their plate, um and we've made them critical infrastructure in our child wel welfare system, and that takes away from their ability to do their actual job which is to educate. Uh and if we're going to do that we better be supporting them in every way that we can. Thank you Madam Chair.

Representative Prox?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Through the chair. The state law

I think, did you quote it anyway, it says if you suspect child abuse you're supposed to report it to OCS.

And that's where I jumped off the bus. That I am not going to put myself in a position where I have to do that based on a suspicion.

And I don't think that happened

many years ago, 50 years ago, when I was in school.

And rather than, well, okay, the question I got to get to that. Is that a federal requirement or is that just something the state decided was a good idea? That it is on suspicion of child abuse you have to report to OCS through the chair.

Through the chair, Representative Prax. That is a state statute that the language is a reasonable cause to suspect a child suffered harm as a result of child abuse or neglect. That's a state statute.

Well, that is good to know.

Mm-hmm.

Because that's the first step. Where it goes wrong is if we have that rigorously enforced.

My guess is that more parents are going to pull their children out of schools and teachers. As in smoking in the boys room. That is a violation of school rules and they basically apparently ignore it. They did when I was in high school too by the way.

Mm.

And as

Representative Ruffridge pointed out, when the state gets involved, that should be very serious and not just casual things where there's debate whether that's excessive discipline or poverty or whatever.

But thank you. That it is something we can discuss and make a decision on and we should think about that.

Next we have Representative Gray-Schwenke-Fields and then I would like to have Director Guay finish up her slides and we'll take more questions after that.

Thank you. Through the chair to Director Guay. I have more questions about the screening in and the screening out.

Thank you.

Per the 2024 Anchorage Children's Trust data,

34.3%

of referrals were screened in in Alaska. The national average is 49.5%. That means that Alaska screened out 65.7%. The national average is 50.5%.

My fear, and we've talked about this before last year when we saw a reduction in the number of kids in OCS custody, and my question

Then was, well, is that because we have less abuse or because we're missing kids that are being abused?

And I'm very concerned that we are screening out so many more than the rest of the nation.

Can you speak to that through the chair?

Through the chair, Representative Grey, thank you for your question. We do a lot of evaluation in our intake department to just make sure that we are screening appropriately. I think that there's work that could be done. Uh some uh counties and states and the nation are now using predictive analytics to help them with the screening rate. Uh that's something that we are looking at. Uh it

It can cause some uh unease with folks, so we're kind of just taking a little bit of a dive into like what that would look like. Um I will typically see well first off hindsight's 20-20, so when something poor happens to a child um

It's easy to see like we've missed some opportunities along the way. So we really do try to use those as learning opportunities and making sure that our screening criteria is correct, um with the information that we have seen. Um I would say um I would say that my intake area in our department

is one of the areas that were is fairly dialed in uh in comparison to other areas of of a uh needs that we have within uh Office of Children's Services. Um they are they are a department and an area that does typically fairly well at their screening decisions and they have a Q_A_ method and and are and are looking at that. Um many when I talk to other folks, I was just um in a meeting last week with some uh directors from other parts of the country, um

The information that they're doing and what I'm seeing is a lot of

poverty calls, and I I'm not saying we don't have poverty here in Alaska, but our poverty is coupled most often with significant substance abuse issues, um or significant mental health issues. And when I'm hearing other states they're talking about like the child came to school four days in a row with the same clothing or uh they're not ha they don't have um they have holes in their shoes, those are not the kind of reports that we receive here in Alaska. Um

So there is a little bit of a difference, I think, between what we see here compared to what um people are talking about across the country as far as changing um some laws and statutes regarding neglect and poverty. Um there is no crystal ball in intake. That's you know what makes it hard uh and so sometimes it's um

if a reporter calls in um a teacher calls in and gives us some information, it may be like oh that's concerning, but it's not really enough. And then the um P_E_ teacher calls in and said, oh I heard this, this and this. Now we're putting pieces of a puzzle together. But every one of those calls

will be documented in our system. And so if and you're all all mandatory reporters are req required to report. So if a kid tells six people a story and they're all mandatory reporters, all six of them are required to report to us and we document every single one of those. So that also is why we have, I think, a little bit higher of a screen out rate than other folks in the country. Because they don't they would document once and they would, you know, use a check box or something of that nature.

Sure, we don't have that capability in our Orca system. But it is something that we're constantly looking at to say like do we need to revise things. What are we seeing as far as um you know we're part of fatality reviews, we're part of repeat maltreatment uh looking at those types of things. So we are trying to always tweak our tools if we need to uh on trying to get the correct people in the door. We try to balance out

um

where we fall as far as the suspected abuse. We don't want our mandatory reporters to go investigate, but we need enough information to screen that in and so sometimes we have to do what we call an extended uh intake and call other people to get additional information to try to elicit like is there harm with this for this child.

So I don't know that answers your question wholly, um but that's kind of the process that we do.

Follow up.

Follow up.

Thank you. Uh through the chair to director Grey. So when you talked about um in lower forty eight perhaps these kids showing up to school four days in a row with the same clothes on, holes in their shoes and that that's not really a standard that we use here, I would actually expect stories like that to mean that the nation's screen out st numbers would be higher and they're not, ours are higher.

And when I heard Dr. George Bedsworth say that we have an average of seven screens before an O_C_S_ intervention, I don't know I mean, that's what I heard her say. Um and I know you know a couple of us ha up here have had experience as foster parents and um I know that my child had eight screens before

child welfare intervened. And when I read those reports, I think they should have intervened the first time. Like, I mean, you read some of these reports and they are just it really,

really it is just so clear to me that there should have been an intervention way earlier. So I can't I don't know if you can speak to how many screens before OCS intervenes.

Through the chair, Representative Gray, I don't have that number. I do not believe it's seven. I think the last number I had heard is three was the average, but I can get that number for you and get back to you.

I do wonder though, like at what point where is the community and the prevention in this? Right. We are further down, like we are, you know, at the very end trying to catch the worst of the worst type of. Right. So were there other people that could have stepped in? And that's where I think that our continuum of care really needs to be built out in this state. We, you know, we don't take it lightly when we're knocking on doors. We are the government.

Right. And that's never

It's not an easy position, but it's also a super important position. So you have, we have to try to figure out how to balance. We have to make sure children are safe and trying to find the right time to knock on that door and intervene is important.

Final follow-up.

Final follow-up.

Thank you. Through the chair, I want to just jump off of what Representative Fields said, and I think my concern is that even though this might be one of your most functional departments, that we might need more investigators,

that we might need more folks who can follow up on these calls,

who can do more than screen it out with no resources offered,

no primary prevention provided at all to these folks early on,

that we need to be intervening more frequently earlier.

And the only way we can do that is if we have enough people to act on those earlier

referrals. And we are so different than the rest of the nation on this that I'm very concerned. Thank you.

Thank you, and I think we might go over five o'clock. If people have to leave, please let me know and I can bump you up into the queue. Next we have Representative Schwanke and then Fields.

Thank you. And I think we might go over 5 o'. Clock.

If people have to leave, please let

Thank you through the chair, thank you Director Guay. I want to say thank you for making the comments about the substance abuse and neglect and the hotspots mandatory reporting.

I'm going to jump ahead a couple slides here. I mean you actually note on here that each department and school district that has required

has required staff that have to report have to file curriculum and materials with the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. So I'm assuming that there's already fairly comprehensive mandatory reporting curriculum out there. Do you see places where you have more referrals that don't end up

resulting in actual intervention? And if that is the case, what kind of interaction do you have with those entities? Do you recommend changes to their individual district mandatory reporting? And would that maybe have more of an effect than redoing this entire process statewide?

Through the chair,

Representative Schwanke, I love your question. We have looked at like where the hotspots are and then why aren't we receiving some reports from some areas? And I tell you, there's a rural area and I'm not going to remember the name, it's a very small village, but they launched a child protection team. And so it's a bunch of community members that said we no longer want our children to be maltreated. And so we know that we have substance abuse issues. And so when

we know mom is going to drink or dad's going to drink or maybe there's domestic violence when there's drinking, they go over and they pick up the kids and they say, come over tomorrow after you've had a night. And they're taking care of their own community. And so what we're seeing is they're intervening early and it's not being reported because they're taking care of their community. So that's an example of like we've seen a decrease.

I wish I could remember the community. The gentleman's name is Andrew Beaver who was doing some really great work back in the day. And so those are things that we have seen some communities step up and some organizations like you mentioned, Beacon Hill Saves Families. There are organizations that are doing some of that work which is fantastic.

a sec because people are more amenable to work with communities and providers rather than the state of Alaska which I get so I don't know if that answered your question but I do think that you know if we can get communities to do some of those

Stepping up, whether it's, you know, the churches, your uh local cultural groups, um I think that we would see less reports coming into the Office of Children's Services and more families being safe.

Okay.

Just quick follow-up. Thank you for that. Uh and I I just wanted to highlight the reality that um the enemy isn't in this room. The people that are hurting children are out there.

scattered across Alaska and it and it takes a community and it takes a village to try to keep children safe.

This is an end end of the road type of trying to protect those children, but there are a lot of recommendations. I would hope that would come forward through this process down the line that are exactly like what you just recommended, so thank you.

Thank you.

Oh sorry.

Oh go ahead.

No I was ready to move on, but Oh. I might

Uh

actually

Representative Fields.

Thanks to the chair.

Yeah, Senator Dunbar mentioned that if you have a social safety net that's been effectively dismantled and schools become the only last remaining social safety net and I know one of my Title 1 schools,

one in five kids'

families are so hungry that the only way they eat is the school not only feeds them during the day, they actually send food home on the weekend. And I was curious what happens when family, a child is say over-reported and upon investigation it turns out the kid's poor, that's why they're hungry, they're not being abused. Does your agency try to refer them for services

to address that, what we would nerdily call a social determinant of health that is starving through the chair.

Through the chair, Representative Fields, yes. If we're out investigating, interacting with the family, we do try to connect them to resources, whether it's the food bank or other community resources and whatever the issues may be. If it's, you know, low level domestic violence, we try to connect them to some education and the mom to some shelter services and things of that nature. So we do try to make sure that they're meeting. We also are trying to work with the Alaska Impact

alliance who's standing up an app that we can get parents to help access services through that route as well.

Okay.

So we are working on that.

Could I ask a follow-up?

Follow-up?

And I know HB 151 eight years ago had tried to improve screen out to services, but my understanding was the Attorney General, and I'm not blaming the current Attorney General, this is a long-standing interpretation that

Follow up.

there are limits, those screen outs limited to tribes but potentially not other agencies, or am I understanding that correctly that that's been an issue with the interpretation of your authority by the AG

Through the chair, Representative Fields, our understanding is a regulation that would prohibit us to share information about a family to a third party without the family's permission.

Okay.

So if we got a call on two children for a parent, I can't just say hey, Beacon Hill go serve this family. I have to call mom and dad and say hey, we received a report,

would you like some services? And during COVID we did try this and almost everyone said no thank you, or who reported me, right? And so

I don't know the best way of doing that. Some states have figured out blindly giving information like here's a phone number, I can't give you any information. If you'd like to call and ask if they would like services, you can do so type of thing. But we have not been able to figure out that regulation, get around it without calling parents.

Mm.

Could I ask what is that regulation

Follow-up.

through the chair?

7 AAC

54.080

Okay,

so a state regulation

and then could I just ask one more follow-up? So if I understand

Follow-up.

this, thank you, does your department systematically say to the parent, you know, there was a report, okay, your department understands there was a report, it's not in your judgment it's not child abuse but maybe the child

needs food.

Is it systematic that the department tries to tell the parents, hey, here's access to food or housing or whatever it is. Is that systematic or is that ad hoc, informing the parent, which is not precluded by this regulation through the chair

Through the chair, Representative Fields, are you talking when it's an investigation or at the intake stage?

Well I'm curious about both, but I was actually asking about an investigation where you get a referral, someone thinks this child is abused or neglected, you do the investigation, you determine

they're not abused or neglected per se, but maybe they are hungry.

We will definitely be

suffering from lack of medical care

making

through the chair.

referrals for that if they wanted. Now is it, there's no way to pull that data out of the system to say like

Sure.

this family received these services, but we are trying to connect them to services.

And I think it's an area that we could probably improve on as well. So I wouldn't say that every single family and again the parents have authority to decide what they want to do or not do,

Sure.

right. We close our case and walk away and hope that they're going to seek services.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Director Guay, please proceed and then I'll make a nuq.

All right, I wanted to talk a little bit about the mandatory reporter training. I am also a member of the Children's Justice Act Task Force and I'm sure many of you have heard the CJA. They come down every session and they talk about things that they are working on. The CJA is a legislative

mandatory committee as well, similar to the CRP. And their mandate is to look at the system response for child welfare. It's comprised of law enforcement, judges, medical providers, mental health providers, educators, lived experience for youth and parents, juvenile justice, AGs, DAs. So it's a wide breadth of people. For the last two decades, this group has been in charge of the State of Alaska's

mandatory reporter training. The CJA task force currently has a work group to update the trainings, the mandatory reporter training, and so this is we're in the process of trying to get through procurement and get a new learning management system. So I wanted to point out that there is a lot of work going on on this topic already. And Department of Education does have their own training which

is not against any state statute. As you saw, they have the majority of the reporters, so they wanted to make sure that teachers understand

their responsibility, not just teachers, educators understand their responsibility. In our new training we are going to develop it where you would have a basic entry, this is the statute, this is what's required. If you're a mental health provider, click here. If you're in the medical field, click here. If you're an educator, click here. If you're a law enforcement, click here. So it gives more of the personal stories

and

the help for people to figure out how to do mandatory reporter training. Department of Education is also on our work group with us to develop this new curriculum.

This is a little bit about the mandatory reporters. It's a state statute, it's 47.17.020 and it talks about who, what the mandatory reporter trainings look like. And so it is on our website, it's free for anyone to use, you can get a printout. It is old, I think it's 2018

and that, you know, it's like I said, we are working on updating it. It's technology-wise, it's out of date. In the last five years we get surveys out of this data. We have 12,000 pieces of feedback from users on our mandatory reporter training. So we're excited about moving forward about what this looks like. We get over 16,000 participants that log into our mandatory reporter training a year.

So it's quite a few users and we're working, we're going to be working on updating as I mentioned.

I'm trying to go quickly. Okay, so response to the CRP and their recommendations, standardized training, I don't know that I believe that it needs to be one training only. You know, each,

for example, Department of Education, they have, I believe it's 56 school districts. And so they want to make sure that it's specific to them. But working with us we're hoping that we can create one, but they might want to add in their own pieces, right. They're going to want to say like when you, whatever rules or whatever they want to do as far as like making sure it's documented in their system somehow, right, like yes I made a report,

I don't know, but we want to be able to talk to people to figure out where the rub is and so we're going to work closely with the Department of Education, who's the other agency out there that has a mandatory reporter training.

It will have, the new training will be informed by users, the people in the CJA task force for two decades, they, I mean, they have investigation, they investigate child abuse and neglect or they evaluate it or they medically treat that.

So we're really making sure that all the lived experience is coming to the table to talk about what this new training should look like.

And the last part about long-term ownership of training by independently funded process,

we're always willing, actually we just, this week we're at a CAC doing some training with their staff.

We're working with our experts around Alaska who's been doing this for over 20 years.

Uh we think that we uh have got this pretty dialled in and that we can get this out fairly soon. Uh so we're excited to see uh where and I know that was a question, when can we get this done? And I we believe that we can get it done fairly quickly after it gets through procurement, we get a learning management system.

So that's it.

Thank you. I have a question and then um we'll turn to representative uh Ruffridge and then Gray.

I've been learning about the Families First Prevention Services Act where uh if states create a title four e prevention plan that half of the costs of those funds would be funded by the feds. And so as we're talking about how we invest more in prevention to decrease

The work that you're doing at OCS,

Alaska is one of three states that doesn't have a plan. It's Alaska,

Alabama,

and Texas.

Why hasn't Alaska created a title IV-E prevention plan, and what can we do to help support to make that happen so that we can invest in these prevention services?

Thank you for the question, Chair Mina. We initially filed an FFPSA, is what we call it, back in 2018. And then we pushed pause after we got some feedback. The FFPSA is a Title IV-E plan, as you mentioned.

It's a payer of last resort. So Medicaid's first and then FFPSA. The requirements in 2018,

the services that you provide for prevention-wise have to be evidence based or promising practice and they have to be in the Federal Clearinghouse. In 2018 there were very few of them and none of them were here in Alaska. We do have some evidence-based services here now. Parents as Teachers is one of them. The feds set this program up. There's very rigorous evaluation

of any evidence-based or promising practice. And so we were kind of waiting to see where Alaska's

where what programming would happen. Nurse Family Partnership, that's one that's now come on board along with Parents as Teachers. But again it's very difficult to use. The states that have FFPSA, only 2% are actually pulling down any federal money. So it's not widely used yet. It still has quite a few bugs that need to be worked out.

The good news is last year

2024, the federal government made

some modifications and are now allowing tribes to file their own tribal FFPSA. And tribes have more leniency as far as the evidence based and promising practices because they can have culturally appropriate services that would qualify. And so we've been working in tandem with our tribes, trying to get our tribes to look at doing this tribal FFPSA. We do have two tribes here in Alaska that have a

tribal approved FFPSA plan. So we're still waiting for the federal government to do some cleanup and get some more services on the clearinghouse.

Thank you for the update. I think that even if there is a low percentage of federal funding from states that do have the plan, I think it's worth it. Especially when we're in a time where there's a lot of consensus and really strong support for prevention and we're trying to figure out how do we invest in these services and where can we find those funds. And so it's great to hear that there's some work on the tribal plan. And I think

I speak for myself, I strongly encourage the state to pursue one as well. Representative Ruffridge and then Gray.

Yeah, thank you, Chair Mina.

I just want to note for the record that the house remains strong in its work.

Almost strong.

And also for the record, we owe you 15 minutes because you let us out earlier than last meeting.

Yes, that's right. Well, I really appreciate you being here today and really actually have appreciated the comments here from the department or division.

A couple of questions. First, is the regulation that you mentioned. I'm uncertain who writes those regulations. Who would that be? And who would update that? Because it's not us.

Nope.

Through the chair, Representative Ruffridge, I believe that they would come

I'm going to say through us, but I'm not 100% sure. So I will check with my

powers that be.

Okay, and then a follow-up to that.

The department

Madam Chair?

apparently, is what the person I need to check with is back there, the department.

Okay.

Yeah.

So follow up, Madam Chair,

if I can. Thank you. So in theory, if you wanted to change one of those, you could as the director ask the department for a regulatory change and that would go through the process, I assume?

Through the chair, yes, that's correct.

Okay, a final follow

-up. So I'm intrigued by this conversation

today. I think Representative Gray was kind of touching on this, or maybe it was Representative Fields, somebody over there.

It's interesting to note that you are the clearinghouse in your office for all reports on children.

And that, you know, Representative Gray brings up a great point that a lot of those reports are ultimately it's not it's not a crime to be poor. And, you know, I think Representative Fields has a great point about a lot of kids are getting potentially reported because they're, you know, maybe hungry or show up with the same clothes or a number of different things.

Would it be helpful if there was a separate non-OCS

clearinghouse of sorts for reporting that you didn't necessarily that wasn't in your department? Would that free up the ability for that whatever that entity is to have a little more free reign? And have you seen anything like that? And I mean you've done this for a long time. Would that be new or has anyone done something similar to that?

Through the chair, Representative Ruffridge, yes, people have done it. Dr. George Bedesworth also mentioned like diversion. And so that's one of the things that some states have moved towards, is using the information, if it doesn't meet a threshold or a criteria, or let's just say we want to work with children in poverty-type situations, like whether it's like

heating fuel or food or you know lack of food security.

If we had like MOUs and were able to give that information, that would be

we'd have to figure out who's going to fund that, right? Because I'm an intervention agency, I don't get prevention dollars to

serve those families, right. So that's a concern, but some states have done it. And I think it could be done. I also think that there's opportunity. I think I've mentioned a couple times that we're hoping to update our ORCA system through the Rural Health Transformation. And I think there's a lot of work that we could do at that intake level. If a case is being screened out, that information would go back to the reporter and say this case is screened out.

And we could link, I mean if we had emails, text messages, you could also say, you know, go straight to a family like if you're in need of here's a resource in your area. So I think like through automation and technology nowadays, a lot of this could be done.

It's one step. It still isn't the connection, person to person. I think that's also something important.

I don't think we figured out as a state how to get to that piece yet. But I think it's an important piece that would and that's kind of the continuum of care that we need to build out in our state. I will say one of the

we have talked about updating this regulation.

Our state typically

is a

boy.

Is heavily a due process state for adults, right. And so I don't know how parents would feel me sharing their information without their permission. And so that's one of those things that we'd have to get through is people typically are worried about. So, like, could there be a criteria? Could you do MOUs to guard that information? I think that that's something that we don't quite have the answer for in Alaska.

Yeah.

Just Madam Chair, thank you.

Well, a couple of things. One, we can take this offline. I'll just tell you where I'm at on the record, two things. I'd like to know what states have some other model that where there's I think of it as a clearinghouse for information where it

mix it outside of your department i think you should have a mission that is very and sadly at the very end where all other things have failed and then you have to intervene in a very challenging way so let's take that off the table and then you have this whole other element in here and i think that's where

all these screen out individuals go, and if we can help in that space, that'd be great. So I'd love to know what states have something similar uh and you can do that offline. The second thing would be is there anything that we can do while we're here for the next sixty days? Is there a s is there some sort of barrier to you implementing something like that? I mean, I'm fine I mean I think if you need to change regulations and you need me to write a letter

letter of support,

I will do that because I think there's some

I think there's some potential in here, because I don't we I don't necessarily know that I want you to have prevention dollars or be responsible for prevention. We fund a whole other thing a whole other set of services to do all that. Um and it'd be great to channel in that direction. Um and it feels like there's a piece missing. So I would like to pursue that not at five fifteen on

Mm-hmm.

uh Thursday, Madam Chair.

Yeah.

I apologise.

I apologise.

Sounds like a great follow-up

Thanks.

Raider. Representative Gray.

Thank you. Through the chair, I'm absolutely

jumping off of Representative Rufford's line of questioning.

So my understanding is that right now, if you have a case that doesn't reach the threshold that OCS needs to intervene,

but you believe that they could benefit from some services,

you need to call that person and get permission to tell a particular nonprofit that they should contact them or, you know, that there has

that you can't call the nonprofit and say, there's a family in need, we'd like for you to reach

out and offer services through the chair.

Through the chair, Representative Gray. On the intake level, so there's an investigation. Once I'm already actively, we're already actively involved with the family, yes, we can say here's all the resources, I'll call, I'll set you up. You know, we can do all that. At the intake level, when the families don't know that they've been reported,

we do not believe we can just turn around and share their information with a nonprofit and say, hey, you should reach out to the Adams family, they may need help.

Follow

Thank you.

up.

So my but it seems like if you want to prevent folks from entering the O_C_S_ system, that providing them with the maximum amount of services

before they're in your system would be ideal. So trying to figure out a way to connect that family that's been reported but isn't going to enter the system at this point

I guess what I'm asking is like, is there statutory language that we could have that could make it possible for you to do that?

And here's why.

I have like a hypothetical in my head.

A family that gets contacted from OCS,

even

though you're not going to investigate,

but they're contacted and they're like, hi,

this is Kim from OCS.

I think your family could benefit from some services. Do you give me permission to share your name with some nonprofits?

Their answer is no.

That's correct.

However,

if like I'm not saying that you should share their file with a nonprofit, but you let a nonprofit know that there's a family that could possibly benefit from food, clothing,

other supportive services and, you know, the phone call is.

Hi, this is Joe from Blah Blah Blah. A friend shared that you might benefit from some of the free services that we offer to families in your area.

Would you be interested in learning about the services that we provide?

They may say yes and listen in a way that they didn't. And I don't think that you've necessarily violated that family's privacy.

Because you didn't share anything about the family other than that they might benefit from some of the services that you offer.

I think there might be a way for us to craft something that is not violating Alaskans' privacy,

but is allowing maximum intervention at an earlier stage than what we're currently doing.

And if you agree,

do you think you could help us craft some statutory language to prevent that regulation from stopping you? Thank you.

Through the chair, Representative Gray, yes I'd love to help with that. The one other thing that we're working on and, you know, as you saw I think fifteen thousand of our twenty one thousand reports are mandatory reporters. So if they also know that we're not involved in these families, they also have the opportunity to connect them to resources, right? And so that's a fine line to walk though, because if you're a medical provider, you still want the family to come back

to see you, right? And so if you're an educator, do you have time and is the family going to be like, oh I don't want to work with you if you're going to be being nosy and getting into my life? So there is a fine line on trying to figure out who can help these families out. But I do think that I definitely would love to help craft some language.

I'm sorry, quick follow-up.

Okay, a quick follow-up.

Okay.

A quick follow up, the fastest.

Thank you. Through the chair, I just want to make a point about that, about mandatory reporters doing more.

So I'm a mandatory reporter as a healthcare provider,

but my first real job out of college was as a high school teacher,

and I did have to do a report.

And the idea that a 24-year-old high school teacher who's struggling to be ready to teach that day is somehow going to not only do a report,

but somehow connect a family with services,

it's just too much to ask.

I'm just saying,

like, you can't give more for a teacher to do

to say, well, just doing the report is not enough. Did you also connect that child's family with services? And I'm like man, I got a hundred and forty nine other kids to worry about. It's just a lot. Thank you.

And through the chair, I agree, but could education, could school districts be hiring people in especially Title 1 schools that are doing community outreach, right? Like it's not the teachers, but how do they help connect to their community is one of the ideas.

Representative Fields.

Well, I just want to note that I think

HB151 did say what Representative Gray was talking about, which is it said OCS should get parents consent and refer them to services. And those sections are 471093 and 471703. So I'm left wondering how do we have this regulation that seems inconsistent with statute and how do we help the department do what it's supposed to do under a bill that passed a decade ago.

Oh man.

Through the chair, since we're just way off the rails, may I interject one

Okay.

Let me have Director Gray respond,

Oh

yeah,

this

and then

this will be part of her response I believe, Madam Chair,

Okay.

hopefully. Please.

Oh we're speaking for the record.

Okay.

Just briefly, I think Representative Fields brings up an excellent point before you respond. I think this would be a key area to let us help with offline again, because

What I was saying earlier, I think OCS is the wrong, maybe that 151 was pointing in the wrong direction. OCS is not the space for service provision.

Because you're the scary people. When people report to you, they are scared. You are the police of kids. The child catcher from what is that movie with the child catcher.

Oh,

It was terrible.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

No, it's got the flying car and all of that stuff. You guys

Very

know what I'm

talking about. We'll watch it later.

There needs to be another place.

Not you. So maybe that could be part of your response, that's all. Thank you Madam Chair.

Thank

you. Sorry for going.

Director Gray. Through the Chair, Representative Fields and Rufford. I believe 151 was talking about after an investigation. So if we have thirty five percent of our screen ends are investigations,

around ninety percent of those investigations get closed out. So those ninety percent of investigations, how do we connect them to services that direct referral so they don't come back to our door? So I think that's what HB 151 is talking about and what we've been talking about in here is at the intake level when somebody's calling in on a parent

they don't know that there's a report and sharing that information. So just to clarify that there's two tracks. One we have an obligation and a statute to follow. And the other one is the intake one is the one that we don't have any authority into that case to be sharing information currently.

So.

Madam chair, for the record the movie

Oh

is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Thank you.

I was going to say Herbie Hancock, but lots of movies.

Thank you for the discussion. And I think we're at the end of our discussion today with the citizens review panel and from Office of Children's Services. So I want to thank Director Gray for coming forth the committee again and also to all of our volunteers for the citizens review panel for all of us playing an important role to figure out how we can improve child welfare for the ultimate goal of helping

our kids in our state.

The time is now five twenty six PM and this hearing of the House joins.

House Health and Social Services Committee is now adjourned.