The American Indian Unit provides culturally appropriate, case management services to American Indian children and families Countywide under the legal mandate of the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA – Public Law 95-608).
The Asian Pacific Program (APP) is a bilingual bicultural service section established in 1987 to assist Asian Pacific families with culturally and linguistically appropriate child welfare services to prevent child abuse and to improve their quality of life. Today it is staffed to serve the following languages: Cambodian (Khmer), Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese.
The Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC) unit connects victims with support services, specialized advocates, and can help provide temporary housing if needed. The unit works in collaboration with law enforcement and other CSEC survivor organizations to support those who have been identified as being trafficked or are at risk of being trafficked. Learn more.
The Deaf Services Unit provides the full range of public child welfare services (from Emergency Response to Permanency Planning) for abused or at-risk deaf children, their hearing siblings and their deaf or hearing parents. The staff of the Deaf Unit is representative of the deaf, partially hearing, and hearing communities. Sign language interpreters are utilized, as case situations require.
The Medical Placement Unit provides case management services to children who are medically fragile and/or have special medical needs. Medically fragile children have conditions requiring special procedures, equipment, devices and/or ongoing medical care and assessment.
The Multi-Agency Response Team (MART) works in collaboration with law enforcement to provide emergency protective services to children identified in homes associated with high levels of illegal gang, firearm and narcotic activity, as well as investigating other high profile “intelligence sensitive” child endangerment cases. MART provides an expedited and trained response to law enforcement referrals to help minimize the traumatic effect these crimes have on children and families.
The Permanency Partners Program (P3) was established to assist social workers in finding legally permanent homes and/or adult connections for youth ages 12-18 who are placed in long-term foster care. Retired social workers have been hired and trained to become “permanency specialists” and assists in this effort.
The Runaway Outreach Unit (ROU) is a dedicated team of Children’s Social Workers (CSWs) focused on locating, placing and stabilizing youth through developing rapport and offering alternative service plans for runaway youth under the age of 18 who are dependents of the court. The Runaway Outreach Unit works collaboratively with the case-carrying Children’s Social Workers to provide more intensive case management interventions in locating and stabilizing high risk youth.
The Skid Row Outreach Unit combats poverty and homelessness among families with children. The goal of the program is to move homeless families into permanent housing into safe residential neighborhoods.
The Special Immigrant Status (SIS) Unit consists of specialized Eligibility Workers (EW) who provide immigration services to all DCFS children eligible for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), an immigration law under Section 153 of the Federal Immigration Act of 1990. When children are eligible for SIJS, the SIS Unit handles the entire legalization process for referred cases until the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approves or denies lawful permanent resident status and issues a lawful resident card for the child/youth.
24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Toll Free within California
(800) 540-4000Outside of California
(213) 639-4500TDD - Hearing Imparied
(800) 272-6699