Where Are The Jobs?

Students in the CRS Certificate Program are from all over the state, in a range of settings. The employers listed below are a sample of the array of settings that students who earn the CRS Certificate may work.

Residential Children's Services

The state of Alaska has many residential service providers that serve a wide range of clients. The need for effective and proactive residential care in the state of Alaska is very great so it is hopeful that in the future even more services and providers will be available within the state, especially with the efforts and initiatives of the Bring the Kids Home Project.

Alaska Baptist Family Services, Anchorage: ABFS provides counseling, foster home placement, and residential care for children with severe emotional or behavioral needs.

Alaska Children’s Services, Anchorage: ACS provides counseling and residential care to children who have been abused or have moderate to server emotional and behavioral needs. Their services include therapeutic foster care, residential psychiatric treatment, aftercare case management, intensive day treatment, and activity therapy.

North Star Behavioral Health, Anchorage and Palmer: A private mental health system that provides a full range of care through their hospital and residential treatment centers for youths age 4 through 17.

Family Centered Services of Alaska, Fairbanks, Delta Junction, Dillingham: FCSA provides a range of community-based and residential services to children and youth in Interior Alaska.

Salvation Army Cares for Kids, Anchorage: A crisis center provides a safe environment for kids that have been removed from their home environment due to safety or welfare concerns. Their mission is to strengthen families and prevent child abuse in Alaska. Providers assess and stabilize children who often have experienced trauma and other unhealthy situations. They also offer respite services for low-income families.

McCann Treatment Center, Bethel: The McCann Treatment Center (MTC) is a Residential Psychiatric Treatment Center (RPTC) located in Bethel, Alaska, which provides clinical psychiatric and substance abuse services for 19 Alaskan youth between the ages of ten and eighteen. The Center specializes in providing care for youth who have developed problems with inhalants and other substances, but also serves youth with serious emotional and behavioral problems, placed by the youths guardian, the State of Alaska Office of Children's Services, or the Division of Juvenile Justice. MTC recently integrated the services of the Girls Group Home and now serves girls in the same age range with the same clinical presentations. Girls join in the on site school, therapeutic milieu and treatment processes with the boys at the center.

Juvenile Justice

Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), Statewide: DJJ is a restorative justice program run through the State of Alaska. Their mission is to hold juveniles accountable for their behavior, promote safety and restoration of victims and communities, and to assist offenders and their families to develop skills for crime prevention purposes. There are DJJ locations all over the state – Juneau, Ketchikan, Prince of Wales, Sitka, Anchorage, Dillingham, Homer, Kenai, Kodiak, Mat-su, Valdez, Barrow, Bethel, Fairbanks, Kotzebue, and Nome. DJJ also oversees eight youth facilities around that state, five of which serve as long-term treatment programs.  These facilities provide various services, such as: life-skills competency building, substance abuse education and prevention, metal health diagnostics and services, education, counseling, and many other various services to help meet the needs of their clients.

Early Intervention and Family Preservation

Rural Alaska Community Action Program (RurAL Cap), Statewide: RurAL Cap is a statewide organization that works to ensure that all Alaskans have equal access to a high quality of life. They serve low-income Alaskans in an attempt to break dependency cycles and help individuals gain control of their lives. Its mission is to protect and improve the quality of life for low-income Alaskans through education, training, direct services, decent and affordable housing, advocacy, and strengthen the ability of low-income people to advocate for themselves. RurAL CAP provides services all over the state that are designed to enhance child and family development, prevent substance abuse, develop leadership, and foster independent living through such programs as Homeward Bound, Head Start, Parents as Teachers, Rebound, and many other services. 

Maniilaq Association Family Resources, Kotzebue and surrounding villages: Family Services provides family casework and other services to preserve families, strengthen family life, and provide foster families for children. The program also offers on-going family and youth services, foster home licensing, and adult protective services.

Foster Care

Fairbanks Community Behavioral Health Center, Fairbanks: Therapeutic foster care is available for up to 10 SED children/youth. Extensive case management support services and foster parent training are provided to each foster parent as part of therapeutic foster care. Non-emergency respite is provided to families of SED and ED children utilizing therapeutic foster parents. Crisis respite is available, based on bed availability, to children who are clients of FCBHC.

Center for Resource Families, Statewide: The Alaska Center for Resource Families ( ACRF) offers a variety of educational opportunities, onsite and distance delivery programs, for families who are wishing to become foster or adoptive parents and on-going training to meet the State of Alaska requirement for foster parents. ACRF also provides pre and post adoption and guardianship support services.   Support services are available to families involved in State, Tribal, relative, private, international, pre-and post-adoptions and guardianships.  Services include access to an extensive resource library, Hague compliant adoption preparation training, case management, education, advocacy, support, referrals and crisis management.

Disability Support Services

Arc of Anchorage: The Arc promotes community integration and high quality of life for children and adults that experience developmental disabilities and behavioral health issues. They provides such services as supported employment, behavioral health services, substance abuse treatment, care coordination, community living services, etc.

Assets, Inc, Anchorage: Assets, Inc provides employment and supportive living services for children and adults that experience disabilities or mental illnesses, in order to fulfill their overall purpose of creating opportunities for individuals to thrive and contribute to their community. Assets provides many services such as, employment assistance, supported living, foster care, and adult assisted living.

Hope Community Resources, Statewide: provides services and supports to individuals and families with disabilities, resulting in their mission of choice, control, family preservation and community inclusion. Hope provides a large variety of services such as residential care, foster care, respite care, family services, mental health services, and much more.  

Programs for Children and Youth

South Central Headstart, Anchorage: The Head Start programs at Northway Mall and Chugach Square Mall in Anchorage represent Southcentral Foundation’s dual contribution to the national program that provides comprehensive services for children between the ages of six weeks and five years. This is a child-focused effort whose goal is to increase the school–readiness of participants, as well as provide support services for their families. A child’s education at Head Start is culturally and developmentally appropriate, literacy-rich, and socially oriented. The individual needs of each child are met through various health and developmental screenings, plus appropriate referrals. The children’s parents are also encouraged to participate in many ways, from helping to develop the curriculum to volunteering in the classrooms. In addition, they are offered opportunities for their own training and employment, in support of the family’s ongoing self-sufficiency.

Program for Infants & Children, Anchorage: Programs for Infants and Children, Inc.  provides early intervention services for children ages 0 - 3 with developmental delays or disabilities. Early intervention is a wonderful tool to assist families in helping their children grow, learn, and develop the skills they will need for the rest of their lives.  PIC's mission is to provide family-centered services for infants and toddlers with special needs to assist them in achieving their highest potential. Our vision is to improve the quality of life for all infants and toddlers with special needs and their families.

Boys and Girls Club of Southcentral Alaska, Statewide: Youth guidance providing children with recreational activities, sports, and day care.

Camp Fire USA: Before and after school child care, community drop-in center program, rural program, summer camp for youth grades K-12.