ACS - Equity Strategies

Administration for Children's Services

Keeping Children Safe & Supporting Families


InitiativesPartnersNewsCareers at ACS


Office of Equity Strategies

The Office of Equity Strategies (OES) was founded in 2018 and is part of the Office of the First Deputy Commissioner.

OES supports work to promote equity and reduce disparity based on race, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation throughout the agency. It leads agency wide initiatives and serves as an in-house resource, providing technical assistance on the development and implementation of equity centered strategies.

There are two programmatic units:

Race Equity Strategies; and

LGBTQAI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, asexual, agender, intersex) Equity Strategies.

Vision and Mission Statement

In alignment with the ACS mission statement, OES envisions resource-rich communities where all children, youth and adults flourish.

To help achieve this vision, OES supports work in four areas:

1) Improving policy and practice towards equity and accountability.
We support staff in understanding what equity means and how to apply equity principles to their work and work relationships.

This work includes professional development and trainings, learning events, distribution of resources, supporting strategy development, and introducing new approaches to help empower staff in using an equity lens.

2) Keeping the agency accountable for eliminating inequity for Black, Latinx and LGBTQAI+ youth and families and helping those in our care to thrive.

We support identifying inequities, developing approaches to address inequities, and increasing support for groups experiencing inequities. From here, we then determine if our approaches are effective in achieving the outcomes we desired.

This work includes managing agency wide action plans for race equity and LGBTQAI+ equity as well as helping the agency respond to City Hall- and City Council-mandated equity reporting.

3) Supporting development of a culture and practice that elevates community voices and the voices of those with lived experience.

We support better engagement with community stakeholders and aim to deepen the agency’s commitment towards more effective partnership with the communities we serve.

This includes promoting strategies that allow community and people with lived experience to influence policy and practice, such as working with the LGBTQAI+ youth leadership council subcommittee.

4) Increasing staff well-being through supporting inclusion and belonging in the workplace.

We help create a workplace where all staff feel welcome, accepted and that they can bring their authentic selves into the workplace and thrive.

This work includes creating spaces for staff to reflect on their experiences through healing circles, providing staff the opportunity to learn about and celebrate diversity through cultural events and supporting strategies that promote staff well-being.

Equity Action Plans:

LGBTQAI+ Action Plan [PDF]

Race Equity Action Plan - Local Law 174 Reports

Contact us with suggestions or questions at lgbtq@acs.nyc.gov or equity.strategies@acs.nyc.gov.