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7 AAC 56.410. Services to parents. (a) An agency shall make services accessible and available to each parent requesting them. (b) An agency shall make every reasonable effort to help a parent to assume or to prepare a parent to resume parental roles and responsibilities toward the child. (c) An agency shall help the family gain access to services necessary to preserve and strengthen the family and to accomplish service plan goals established in 7 AAC 56.340(a). While the child is in care, the agency shall offer assistance to a parent with the problems and needs that brought about the need for placement. (d) An agency shall make counseling available, according to 7 AAC 56.330, to each expectant parent considering placement before the child is born and immediately thereafter. (e) An agency shall explain the extent to which a parent is involved in planning for and placing their child and shall allow a parent to state the parent’s preferences affecting the selection of the placement setting. An agency shall also explain that the agency makes the final placement decision based on the child’s best interests and applicable state and federal law. (f) The agency shall encourage contacts between a parent and a child after placement, in accordance with the service plan in 7 AAC 56.340(b)(2) and (3). (Eff. 1/1/2001, Register 156) Statutory Authority: Authority: AS 44.30.020 AS 47.32.030 Editor’s note: Effective July 1, 2022, Executive Order 121 split the former Department of Health and Social Services into the Department of Health and the Department of Family and Community Services. As of Register 242 (July 2022), the regulations attorney made conforming technical revisions under sec. 138, E.O. 121 and AS 44.62.125(b)(6), to the authority citation that follows 7 AAC 56.410 to substitute references to AS 44.30.020 and AS 47.32.030 for the references to AS 44.29.020 and AS 47.35.010. 7 AAC 56.420. Services to foster, adoptive, and guardianship parents. (a) To acquaint them with the agency’s policies and requirements an agency may, in