Rooted Leader: Angela
"Youth4ward"
How can I promote child welfare in the San Gabriel Valley?
Angela’s research started with this question and it led her to quickly realize that the systems set in place to support child welfare in LA County are very vast and complex. Angela has found an interest in promoting child welfare through education and local activism efforts that focus on permanent housing for families and their children.
“Section 8 housing is a shot in the dark, but when advocating for my clients, my role
is to decrease these barriers on the
basis of human rights.”
KEY STAKEHOLDERS
Constituents: Children in the San Gabriel Valley who do not have access to permanent housing. Angela is particularly interested in understanding the support systems that help families and children find permanent housing so that these children can have their basic needs met.
Allies: Elizabeth House, CPAF, and DCFS:
To break down this very complex system, Angela identified allies in her community that navigate the family reunification and permanency planning stages of the child welfare map (Figure 1 below). A social worker from DCFS (Department of Child Family Services) shared about different social services that are offered to children in need. Shelter Coordinators from Elizabeth House and CPAF met with Angela to share about the process it takes to support and find permanent living situations for families who are displaced from their homes for a very wide range of reasons.
Decision Makers: City Council and School Principal. Angela is looking towards City Council to provide more funding to provide affordable housing to children and their families. This means more money for housing, more money for employees that coordinate services, and more funding for providing education around this topic. Angela is looking to her school principal to approve student-led workshops aimed to educate teens about this issue.
Figure 1. This infographic is a roadmap of child welfare that you can click on to enlarge and visit the DCFS website. The entire child welfare process is very complex and tedious with aid from public agencies, departments of social/ family/child services, private child welfare agencies, and community-based organizations. These programs provide services to families such as in-home family preservation services, foster care, mental health care, residential treatment, employment assistance, financial assistance, and more. Angela is particularly interested in the section of this map that deals with judicial review, family reunification, and permanency planning.
Figure 3. Interview with CPAF shelter coordinator. Angela learned a lot about the barriers that family and shelter coordinators face when trying to access and find permanent housing options. She learned a lot about Section 8 housing vouchers in particular, which can seem virtually impossible to get a hold of for families given all the regulations and requirements that families must meet to access this housing.
Figure 2. First interview with Rooted Leadership Project Mentor and Elizabeth House. Organizations like Elizabeth House would expand their services if they could, but because of how expensive the programs are, the first priority is to keep the money going. Case management, homes, and counseling are high-cost but necessary. Every level of government should be conscious of funding these fundamental housing programs.
Figure 4. Info from interview with social worker at DCFS. This is a spreadsheet listing the eligible Independent Living Program (ILP) services, requirements, and descriptions. ILP behaves as a ‘parental figure’ for youth ages 16-18 by providing the necessary financial support and care that these youth need.
“My phone number will always stay the same— I won’t stop answering your phone calls. I won’t stop replying to your texts.”
RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings from her stakeholder interviews, Angela wants to promote child welfare through the recommendations she has outlined below.
Education and Local Youth Activism
Hold workshops at school around the topic of child welfare. Based on the connections I’ve made and what I have been continuing to learn about, I would break down this large topic into the following smaller topic areas: (a) social services, (b) the foster system, (c) and permanent housing.
Get support to continue these workshops in my school and surrounding schools as well. I’m especially interested in continuing to learn about child welfare in the context of my hometown.
Create an online resource that will allow people to learn about child welfare more easily so that they can understand some of the core issues and get involved. For example, this online resource could: (a) highlight key topic areas; (b) provide an informative summary about each topic area; (c) identify challenges, needs, and successes within each topic area; (d) highlight key organizations providing services in the topic area; and (e) outline specific ways that youth can get involved to support the work in a given topic area. (Update: Angela has since established Youth4ward with her peers. Youth4ward)
In my role as the community outreach leader of Future Unchained, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving victims of human trafficking, I would like to introduce them to the key stakeholders I have met in the child welfare space.
Challenges in Promoting Child Welfare
Something challenging has been starting with a broad idea of child exploitation (labor and sexual exploitation) and trying to narrow down my focus. I felt frustrated because communicating with other organizations to learn more about their work was especially difficult due to the pandemic and holidays. However, examining the DCFS map was helpful in allowing me to hone in on one specific area (judicial review and family reunification/ permanency planning). Currently, it is challenging to volunteer with organizations, because many opportunities are unavailable to my age group.
Housing should be a human right and because so many curveballs are thrown at caseworkers, it is vital to simplify the process of gaining access to housing. Shelter coordinators and directors are advocating to loosen up housing requirements. With the pandemic, even fewer families fit the requirements and there are rarely any affordable low-income housing units.
Initial action steps to address the issue: increasing people’s knowledge about child welfare, community organizing around issues and solutions related to child welfare, and leading impacted youth to organizations like DCFS and partner agencies. Youth can focus on a broad range of policies, with a special focus on funding for social services that protect vulnerable women/children.
Complex changes that need to happen to support child welfare are grants, employment, and city council changes. We need a city council that prioritizes funding for permanent and affordable housing so that children and their families can access these basic human needs.