Department of Family and Community Services receives $195K Child Welfare Research Training or Demonstration grant from the Administration for Children and Families

Alaska fingerprinting infrastructure modernization for child welfare - the Alaska office of children’s services (ocs) seeks funding under HHS 2026 ACF acyf ct 0062 to modernize fingerprinting infrastructure and reduce delays in background checks for foster, kinship, and emergency caregivers. Alaska’s remote geography, limited road access, and weather dependent travel create significant barriers to timely fingerprinting, resulting in frequent delays in safe child placements. Ocs operates 16 stationary live scan machines across 20 offices, several of which are aging, and none are portable—leaving many rural and tribal communities without practical access to required fingerprinting services. The project will upgrade eight existing machines and deploy ten fbi certified portable units to expand statewide access. Staff will receive training in device use, secure data transmission, and updated workflows. Ocs will track improvements in turnaround time, field based fingerprinting, and emergency placement processing while implementing sustainability measures such as maintenance contracts and lifecycle planning. This effort will accelerate safe placements, increase caregiver availability, and strengthen statewide child welfare capacity.