Hope Continues: Crittenton’s COVID-19 Response

05 May

While the COVID-19 crisis has created disruption and uncertainty to our daily lives, Crittenton is determined in continuing our mission and providing mental health services to the children and families that need our support.

This public health crisis has unfortunately triggered a global trauma response that has unprecedently impacted every sector of our society and has stretched the social services safety net to its limits.

For more than fifty years, Crittenton has helped system-involved children and families facing turmoil and crisis work through their trauma in order to reach a level of wellness and stability. This is however the first time our agency, like so many nonprofits across the country, has had to figure out how to best help our clients through a pandemic. Making our mission much more challenging to accomplish during this time period.

Our agency has never been one to shy away from challenging cases or circumstances. We have always believed that in the middle of great difficulty lies an opportunity to serve. As an essential services organization not helping our community is not an option. Now more than ever we are answering a call of duty in continuing to provide the quality residential treatment, family-based and community-based services our agency is known for. Albeit, now adhering to the new standards set forth by the CDC and the state of California that meet new social distancing guidelines and safety protocol.

Across our agency team members have been participating in healthy and safe public health practices. These safety procedures include the use of cloth facial coverings and other personal protective equipment, proper and frequent handwashing, measurement of body temperature, social distancing when practical and feasible in relation to conducting wellness checks and working with our clients in our shelter spaces, routine cleanings of our facility spaces, promptly reporting symptoms of illness of any kind, the use of telehealth as a way to delivery outpatient mental health services to clients, working remotely from home for the majority of our staff, and having an on-going collaboration with our local public health officials.

We are in this together with the children and families we serve for as long it takes. However, we owe the extraordinary leadership and fortitude shown at this time period to every one of our amazing social workers, therapists, case managers, maintenance, and other program and administrative personnel working to meet the needs of the most vulnerable clients we currently serve. Thank you all in continuing to help build emotional resiliency and well-being.

For those in the community that would like to continue to support our mission during this time we encourage you to connect with us to find out what our current needs are. Our front office team may not all be working in our offices at the moment, but we are still checking our voicemail, emails, and agency’s social media channels. We are looking forward in partnering with you and answering questions about becoming a foster parent, a future volunteer or intern, or donating to help strengthen our mental health programming or help us meet the basic needs of the families and children we serve.

We sincerely wish every supporter the very best in health and wellness. And we look forward in continuing to work with you today, tomorrow and in a not so distant future. Crittenton truly appreciates the kindness shown by all of you thus far.

For Further Resources and Information About COVID-19:

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Crittenton Services for Children and Families of Southern California (CSCF) is a non-profit social services agency whose mission is to heal the wounds of abuse and neglect; strengthen families; and help troubled adolescents reach their full potential. Established and incorporated in 1966 Crittenton has a highly trained workforce operating 24 hours a day / 7 days a week providing comprehensive mental health services, shelter care, and other support services to the clients in our care. We provide a full array continuum of care programming that includes short-term residential, family preservation, wraparound family services, outpatient mental health, school-linked mental health, transitional age youth programming, and foster care services with a service planning area throughout Southern California that covers Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties.

Visit www.crittentonsocal.org to learn more about our programs and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Flickr