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Apr 07, 2023

Agency seeks help preserving families

It’s 11 p.m., and the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office responds to a call about

It's 11 p.m., and the Pasco County Sheriff's Office responds to a call about domestic violence, child abuse or neglect, or some circumstance where they determine children are unsafe in the home and need to be removed immediately.

The best option for these children is to go to the home of a safe relative or friend, but at that moment the home doesn't have diapers, or formula, or car seats or beds, so the children are sent to the home of a foster family they don't know, or maybe more than one, as 40% of children in the Tampa Bay area placed in foster care are separated not only from the adults in their families, but from their siblings as well.

Helping to eliminate barriers to family preservation is the aim of Suncoast Voices for Children's Pasco Safe with Family Project. The nonprofit, which has been serving children in or at risk of being placed in foster care in Pasco and Pinellas counties since 2004, is seeking donations of goods, and funds, to help children stay with people they already know and who already care about them.

"Case managers and foster parents work hard for children, but we need a community solution to protect our children together," the organization says in a project brochure. "Research shows that kids who are placed with safe family members instead of in foster care are much more likely to succeed as adults. However, loving aunts, uncles and grandparents often can't afford to take in children, or they don't have the supplies required by law to take custody."

In Pasco, the need is overwhelming. According to Suncoast Voices, Pasco County has, for example, three times as many children in care — an average of 46 kids placed a month — as in Orange County, which has a larger population. In addition, the state of Florida provides less support per child here than the state average, and children are moved from home to home an average of every six months.

This lack of support has consequences not just for individual children, but for society as a whole. Statistically, in an example used by Suncoast Voices, of four foster children in the county, two male and two female, one will be in jail by age 20, two will never graduate high school, one will be homeless at age 18, both girls will be pregnant by age 21, and all four are at risk of developing PTSD or other mental or emotional disorders. It's a high social cost for not providing support in the first place.

To help ease the burden, Suncoast responds 24 hours a day with emergency supplies needed for families so that the children don't have to spend even one night in a strange home, Andrew Maurin, Suncoast Voice's executive director, told the Suncoast News in a phone interview. They also provide support to children who are in the care of foster families, most of whom, he added, "aren't extremely well to do and certainly aren't making money off this."

That means that Suncoast Voices provides not just the bare minimum to keep a child housed, but also the things that help them live like other children: clothing that kids want to wear, eyeglasses, music lessons, extracurricular activities: "We fund those sorts of things as well to make sure that there's some sense of normalcy and they can have the kind of experiences you would want for your own children or grandchildren," Maurin said.

And providing those things takes resources, including money, which is where the community comes in. Suncoast Voices suggests people can support the Pasco Safe with Family Project by, for example, organizing a drive to collect diapers, portable cribs (because of safety regulations, used car seats and cribs are not allowed), wipes, formula and similar items. They will also provide a mini "Christmas tree" that they hope businesses and other organizations will use year-round to collect funds. The trees come with a code people can scan to learn more about the program and how to drop off donations that Suncoast Voices will collect.

For more information about the Pasco Safe with Family Project and other programs operated by Suncoast Voices for Children, or to donate, visit suncoastvoices.org or call 727-582-3609.

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