Sacramento offers many services for children in crisis.
Children compose the most vulnerable group in society, requiring care and protection. Providing that care and protection encompasses a wide category of programs and services. In California's capital city of Sacramento, the term children's care homes expands on these ideas with institutions dedicated to doing what is necessary in each child's individual situation. Those institutions focus on children from newborns to teenagers, providing age-appropriate services.
Temporary Shelter
Children needing a temporary home to provide care have options in Sacramento. The Children's Receiving Home of Sacremento, founded in 1944, provides a home for abused children. The typical stay will be 35 to 40 days, giving the child time to recover. Services provided by the home include the basics: shelter, food and clothing. Medical and dental services are provided, along with educational opportunities at the school, located at the home. Recreation and related activities are available. Children receive other services, such as mental health, on an as-needed basis, all with a focus of preparing the child to leave the home. Another temporary shelter, specializing in children 5 years of age and under, is the Sacramento Crisis Nurseries. This facility, opened in 1996, emphasizes short-term care for families needing a break during a crisis, with the goal of preventing child abuse and neglect.
Foster Care
Although foster care is considered a temporary home until a permanent placement can be found, it is more than a temporary shelter. Foster care provides a permanent residence in the sense that it is the home for a child until another home is located. In Sacramento, Families for Children provides foster care placement services along with adoption placements. Services for foster parents include home visits, crisis intervention, education and training and monthly compensation. The children either return to their biological parents or Families for Children arranges adoption placements.
Residential Program
Residential programs provide an intense setting in which a child can be treated for behavioral or emotional problems. Sacramento Children's Home offers such a program, which it calls a 24-Hour Program, referring to the fact that the child remains with them in an inpatient status. The home is equipped to handle up to 44 children who are unable to function in a family setting due to anger, depression or other emotional problems. The goal is to enable the child to return to his family setting with the ability to cope with problems that led him to the children's home.
Group Homes
A group home provides a setting where children live together in a protective environment. It represents a larger group than a foster home but smaller than an orphanage. Atkinson Youth Services, a nonprofit organization, operates group homes in Sacramento and other California locations. Each home serves six children ranging from age 6 to 18. The home provides the children with food, shelter and whatever assistance is necessary to meet their individual needs, which normally relate to abuse.
Tags: adoption placements, along with, care protection, emotional problems, Families Children, family setting