State seeks reform of OCS

JOHN DAVIDSON/Frontiersman reporter

The state Office of Children's Services might be opening up about some of its usually confidential activities, as part of a legislative package announced Monday by the state Department of Health and Social Services.

The child-protection package, part of the governor's FY 2006 budget, proposes legislation that would allow DHSS and OCS to provide the public with more information about department actions surrounding abuse cases.

Marcia Kennai, deputy commissioner for OCS in Juneau, said the push for more openness in child protection cases follows the lead of nearly a dozen other states that have open court proceedings for family cases.

Another reason for loosening confidentiality is to give OCS workers a way to respond to allegations from the public and explain their actions in specific cases, Kennai said. Current confidentiality statutes do not allow OCS workers to comment on specific cases under any circumstances, even if families come forward and forego their own privacy rights.

"We want to open things up," Kennai said. "We want to be accountable to the public and we're trying to figure out the best way to do that while protecting the rights of families."

The child-protection package announced Monday is a preview of Gov. Frank Murkowski's detailed FY 2006 budget, which is due Dec. 15. In addition to changing confidentiality laws, the state DHSS is also proposing to add $6 million to the OCS budget and another $1.5 million to the Division of Juvenile Justice.

Joel Gilbertson, DHSS commissioner, said Monday the department is still working on legislation regarding child-protection confidentiality and will make proposals to the Legislature in January.

A portion of the proposed funding would go to 34 additional positions for OCS, which will include case workers, support and management. The state agency currently has 385 workers statewide, 226 of which are "front-line" caseworkers, Kennai said.

Sixty positions have been added to OCS since the governor began an overhaul of child-protection services in 2003. Last year, OCS added 26 positions to help lower caseloads. However, Kennai says caseload numbers can be misleading.

"We're trying to get a handle on what is the workload, as opposed to the caseload," Kennai said. "Caseloads are high everywhere. When they're not high, it's because a worker may be in St. Mary's, where they have to do everything. Maybe their caseload is 10, but they're doing other duties as well."

The proposed budget package also provides for unified home studies of foster and adoptive homes. Currently, the application process for becoming a licensed foster parent is far less stringent than the process for becoming an adoptive parent; OCS wants to make the processes the same.

The important change involves requiring potential foster parents to undergo what OCS calls a unified home study, which includes interviews with both parents, in-depth questioning and complete narrative family history.

"We want to know where families are when they come to us," Kennai said. "Do they want to help a lot of children? Are they looking to adopt? What are their different motivations? I want to make sure we're much clearer about those motivations; we want to do much better at matching."

One of the concerns about making foster parents undergo a home study is that the OCS will lose applicants. Nearly 80 percent of adoptive parents are foster parents, Kennai said, and there is already a need for more foster homes statewide.

"One of the reasons we're moving forward with this reform is so we'll have safer foster homes," Kennai said. "This new process will address abuse and neglect in foster homes by better preparing foster parents so they'll know what they are getting into."

The unified home study also includes training for potential foster parents, to make them more aware of what displacement involves and how it affects a child. Foster children in Alaska are moved too much, Kennai said.

In 2002, an extensive review of Alaska's child-protection services by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that in 39 percent of cases reviewed, children had not experienced stability in their placement.

The federal standard, established in the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, states that a foster child should have no more than two moves in a 12-month period.

OCS has been subject to increased public scrutiny and criticism in recent months following the Kelley abuse case, in which five adopted children were allegedly subject to bizarre and brutal forms of physical and psychological abuse by their adoptive parents, Patrick and Sherry Kelley.

The five children were all placed in the Kelley home by OCS and later adopted by Patrick and Sherry, who now face 54 criminal charges, including nine felony counts. A pre-trial conference is set for Dec. 8.

But OCS maintains the proposed changes are not a direct result of the Kelley case. Kennai said OCS reforms have been in the works for more than a year as part of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act and the overhaul of Alaska child-protection services that began after the federal DHHS report in 2002.

However, there are some who doubt OCS' intentions to be more open and accountable to the public.

Kenneth Kirk, an Anchorage attorney representing the biological relatives of the Kelley children, issued a statement Tuesday implying that while OCS is publicly proposing changes to make its actions more open, in court cases the agency is still trying to deny close relatives access to vital information.

Current laws allow judges to give relatives access to case files, but OCS is fighting those efforts, Kirk said.

"My experience has been that the state's reflex is to oppose anyone getting access to information," Kirk said. "It's their immediate, automatic response. I'm really hoping this is not a publicity stunt, because I want there to be a definite change. But these are just proposals; what will really happen?"

When a high-profile case comes along -- such as the Kelley case -- Kirk says state agencies will sometimes come up with a package proposal meant to address problems that came to light as a result of the case, but then include a number of other things the agency wants, such as additional funding. In the process of legislation, the reforms meant to address problems get washed away.

"There's a lot of stuff that goes on with OCS that no one ever hears about," Kirk said. "Both because of confidentiality and because of embarassment."

An independent citizens review panel that met last month at Wasilla High was conceived in the wake of the Kelley case to gather information on how the state child-protection system works and how it can be improved.

Most of the public comments at the meeting either pertained to concerns about OCS confidentiality, or the problem of foster children moving too often between foster homes.

"I have heard comments by those who think OCS is hiding behind confidentiality, but I don't think that is the case," Kennai said. "I don't think it is a pervasive attitude."

Contact John Davidson at john.davidson@frontiersman.com.