A parent contacted the Ombudsman asking for help having her children released to her custody. She said that she had done everything on her case plan, but OCS was not returning the children to her care. The Ombudsman reviewed the agency’s online case management system and learned that the agency had placed the children with their mother on a trial home visit several months prior. However, the week before the complainant contacted our office, she had taken the children and moved out of state without permission from OCS, who had legal custody of the children. The Ombudsman informed the complainant that, even if OCS had failed to return the children in a reasonable time frame (which did not appear to be the case), she was not justified in taking the children out of state. For this reason, the Ombudsman declined to intervene in the complainant’s case. (A2017-0184)