CASA believes it is in the best interest of all children to reunify or remain with their family of origin whenever safe and that removing children from their families causes trauma. However, when young people enter the Dependency Court (foster care) system, and are removed from their family home, the county child welfare system does the best it can to provide safety, security, and permanency.
The system has, as part of its foundation, Resource Families (foster parents) that open their homes to children and youth while their parents are working to have their children returned to them. However, when there is a lack of Resource Families in an area, it makes the process of placing youth in a safe family environment difficult.
In Santa Cruz County, I have noticed more and more teenager dependents of the court end up in placements outside of the county. Currently about one-third of teens in out-of-home placement are placed out of county. This could be for a number of reasons.
First it could be that the youth’s closest family members that would qualify to be their Resource Family live outside of Santa Cruz County. This situation is less worrisome than the rest, because the youth is with family and presumably are closer to a sense of emotional permanence, if not also physical permanence.
Additionally, sometimes youth are moved out of county because they have a higher level of need than is being offered or is available in Santa Cruz. Short Term Residential Treatment Programs (STRTPs,) are intended by the law to be 6-month stints in a congregate therapeutic setting where they can receive mental health or substance use disorder treatment. In practice however, Haven of Hope is the only STRTP in our county, and seemingly the region. They have a good reputation, and many counties, including those in southern California, seek to place youth there. However, the number of beds at Haven is too few to serve the number of youth who need it. As a result, youth are placed in far-flung STRTPs in other counties.
Finally, the last reason that teens often get placed out of the county is that there is simply not enough Resource Homes who are willing to house teenagers. I can think of a number of youth off the top of my head who have bounced around from placement to placement from here to the Central Valley because there are simply not enough Resource Homes in the county for them. The ones that do exist are incredible, and I can’t say enough good things about the homes that I am thinking of. The homes I have in my mind have multiple youth in their care and have been doing so for years.
As Court Appointed Advocates for these Santa Cruz County youth, we do our best to serve those who have been placed outside our county. Fortunately, we are part of a state-wide CASA network and can contact our sister organizations in the counties where the youth are placed. These sister CASA organizations have loaned us Advocates that will visit with the youth in their community and report back to us when its time for court dates. Some examples of this include Nevada, Solano, and Sacramento Counties. And, in turn, we reciprocate this if a youth is placed in Santa Cruz County from out of the area. So while it is not ideal at all to have a youth removed from their community and placed out of county, we are fortunate to have partner resources on the ground in many counties across the state to offer local assistance.
For more information on becoming a Resource Family, please visit https://santacruzhumanservices.org/FamilyChildren/FosterCareandAdoptions/HowdoIApply
