Our mission is to lead the community in the protection of children at risk of abuse and neglect. This is accomplished by working with families, service providers and community members to assess risk and coordinate community-based services resulting in safe, stable, and permanent families for children.
Our mission is to lead the community in the protection of children at risk of abuse and neglect. This is accomplished by working with families, service providers and community members to assess risk and coordinate community-based services resulting in safe, stable, and permanent families for children.
Mission/Vision
About the Mission Statement / Preserving Families
The agency’s mission statement was written in 1999 by a consortium of more than 100 community child welfare stakeholders and LCCS staff to emphasize the agency’s leadership role in protecting abused and neglected children. This mission statement has been periodically reconsidered as part of the agency’s reaccreditation and strategic planning processes, and remains as valid today as it was in 1999.In assuming the responsibilities outlined in our mission statement, we also try our best to preserve families. Children belong in families, hopefully the one they are born into. We prefer that a child remain at home while we provide services to stabilize the family. If a child cannot live safely at home, we first look for an appropriate relative to care for the child for as long as necessary. If a relative is not available, the child will be placed with a foster family, or other least restrictive placement that can meet the child’s needs. In every case, the safety of the child is our main concern. We also believe in permanence for children. Children need stability, and they need permanence. If the crisis in a birth family cannot be resolved, it is our responsibility to seek an alternative, permanent family for those children in a timely manner.
Our Vision
Lucas County Children Services will develop an equitable system of supports and services that ensure all children can be safely protected in their own home or with kin, thereby eliminating the need for long-term substitute care.
Our Practice Model
Culturally competent, strength-based, family-centered, child-focused and trauma informed.
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Our Mandate
Ohio Revised Code 5153: County Children Services
Lucas County Children Services gets its mandate from state of Ohio law. According to the Ohio Revised Code, public children services agencies shall do all of the following:
- Investigate allegations of child abuse, neglect or dependency
- Make reasonable efforts to prevent the removal of children from their homes
- Accept custody of children from courts with juvenile jurisdiction
- Provide temporary emergency shelter when necessary
- Find family foster homes for children
- Implement a system for assessing risk to children
- Administer federal adoption assistance funds
