Children are crying, refusing to leave their parents as they experience a myriad of adult-sized emotions including fear, confusion and grief over a loss they cannot understand yet. It's a heartbreaking scene to take in as child protective services enter the children's home and remove them from their families.
The CPS agents usher the crying and scared children into vehicles with only a few of their belongings and taken to a place they have never seen before, full of strangers. The kids don't know when or if they will ever see their families again.
This is the traumatic reality of 55 to 60 children each day throughout Central Texas as they are removed from abuse and neglect. While it is normal to assume these children would welcome the removal from abusive homes, these are the only homes and families they have ever known. Now they enter a system that is wholly overwhelmed with nothing but a small trash bag and rarely a change of clothing.
Not enough homes or supplies
Right now, there are 1,200 children currently in the Central Texas foster care system, with over 160 kids without placement. There simply aren't enough foster homes or supplies.
Kids sleeping in CPS offices
Without available trained and licensed foster care homes and families, over 200 children have nowhere to go. Presently, they are sleeping on cots in Child Protective Services’ offices. Most of them are teenagers who were removed from significant abuse and neglect and now carry the emotional and mental scars of a childhood of trauma.
With just the clothes on their back and little else
At a current rate of 55 to 60 children each month entering our regional foster care system, these kids carry only the clothes on their back and hardly much else. They have nothing to their names.
Hope Totes delivers a little comfort
While we cannot take in and care for these children, we can assemble a loving tote, duffle, or backpack comprised of four days worth of brand-new clothes, a pair of shoes, hygiene necessities and, for the youngest among them, a handmade blanket.
Cable Com, Inc.
Credibility International
Fourlane
Hamic, Previte & Sturwold, P.A
Oversight Technology
Taylor Morrison
Austin House Company
Booser, Ken
Chatham, John and Leslie
Crowe, Greg and Joan
Dell Foundation
Digitech Sales, Inc.
Generation Serve
Wassum, Jennifer
Wassum, Jerry and Mary Beth
11602 TURTLE LN
Austin, TX 78726
512-203-1139
for.everychild@yahoo.com
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