Meeting will discuss problems with Office of Children’s Services

WASILLA — Spend enough time around the Valley and it’s likely you’ll run into someone with a lot to say about the Office of Children’s Services.

Rarely are those impromptu reviews positive.

Which, of course, is understandable when talking about an organization that has as one of its duties removing children from troubled homes.

Wasilla Rep. Wes Keller is hoping that a meeting he has planned for Thursday will help clear the air.

He’s called a meeting for Thursday, from to 7 p.m. at the Legislative Information Office on Railroad Ave. in Wasilla. Keller will be there, as will Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner Bill Struer, who oversees OCS. Keller said he expects local OCS staff also will attend.

“Frankly I see myself as the peacemaker, hopefully getting good information on the table,” Keller said.

He said that various groups have advertised the meeting, some of them saying that it’s an opportunity to come to Wasilla and air their beefs with OCS.

“They may have left the impression at least in some people’s minds that it’s a gripe session and I hope that doesn’t carry the day. I’ll try to make it an informational session,” Keller said, before clarifying: “I don’t mean to call it a gripe session in the sense that their concerns are not valid. They are very valid.”

He said that he felt a need to put this kind of meeting together after hearing from a number of his constituents.

“There’s been a lot of concerns raised by some of the constituents in the Valley about OCS,” Keller said. “They have agreed to come up and answer questions that the concerned parents might have.”

The office, he said, has recently begun instituting some improvements, one of them being to try and engage more with local communities. This meeting is a part of that effort.

Another change Keller said he thinks was positive is the idea of bringing together groups of people interested in a child’s welfare before making a decision where to place the child.

“The social worker will gather a group of people that are significant in the child’s life, parents, school teachers, youth leaders, aunts and uncles and grandparents and they try to have a group meeting to determine what is best for the child,” Keller said.

But if that’s a positive thing, it might have caused some confusion here in the Valley.

“They have emphasized that approach in Wasilla and there may have been some growing pains with that, I don’t know,” Keller said.

While he endeavors to keep the meeting informational, Keller said parents will have a chance to speak.

“We’ll give as much time as needed for the concerned parents to bring their concerns forward,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.