In California Wine Country, Child Welfare Responds to Wildfires
When wildfires ripped through northern California's wine country in October, the devastation reverberated through the local communities, where more than 40 people were killed and more than 14,000 homes are partial or total losses.
The child welfare communities in Sonoma and Napa counties were not immune to the destruction. As the holiday season approached, efforts to stabilize foster care placements moved quickly. Solutions for the region's transition-age youth have proven to be trickier to address.
In immediate response to the fires, agency staff went to work just to ensure that children in the foster care system and the families caring for them were safe.
"We made sure every family and child was accounted for", said Meg Easter-Dawson, program development director with Sonoma County. "We just split up the list and started calling."Â
The agency created a spreadsheet that helped them track if foster families, relative caregivers and transitional age youth had been evacuated, where they were staying, and what needs they might have. In some cases, caseworkers made trips to local grocery stores to get gift cards and supplies for families who had been displaced. The county was able to quickly account for every one of its roughly 700 kids.
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For transitional age youth living in the area, an added layer of challenges have come to light following the fires. Contracted to work with that demographic of individuals in both Sonoma and Napa counties, area nonprofit On the Move's staff also went to work immediately to contact the youth they work with to ensure their safety when the fires first broke out.
"We initiated our emergency phone tree system", said Amber Twitchell, associate director of On The Move "The immediate need was to make sure they were safe. Secondary was making sure they had a place to stay".Â
On the Move was able to account for all 600 transition-age youth in the two counties they work closely with within the first day. Since then, they've had further outreach to the more than 1,200 total transitional age youth they work with. While only a few lost housing, many of the youth lost wages while the fire raged through their communities.
"Lots of them lost wages because the fires shut down two cities for two weeks", Twitchell said.
Click here to read the full article written by Kim Phagan-Hansel: https://chronicleofsocialchang...onds-wildfires/28778
In California Wine Country, Child Welfare Responds to Wildfires
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