DES cuts mean children services slashed

Mesa agency that helps families and abused children saw a $1.8 million cut from DES this week.

Foster care subsidies face sharp decline

The Child Crisis Center, which has served East Valley families for 27 years, already cut salaries last month in anticipation of what the state would do in light of a $1.6 billion revenue shortfall halfway through the fiscal year.

But the cuts to programs were deeper and more severe than expected, said Christine Scarpati, executive director. And it’s not just her agency that’s facing the reductions.

DES had to cut $61.7 million from its budget this year plus an additional $5.1 million in employee expenses, the Tribune reported last week.

There are just three agencies in the county that help provide visitation services for biological families to connect with their children when they’re taken under Child Protective Services.

That entire funding has been eliminated, Scarpati said.

“We’ve done a visitation program for CPS families in our building on University (Drive) ... for kids in foster care who needed to have supervised visits with their families who were working hard to have their kids reunited,” Scarpati said.

Last year, Child Crisis workers drove more than 70,000 miles to bring children to the visits.

“Parents would make their way there and qualified social workers would supervise the visit and help with parenting, do mentoring, provide resources, become a safety net for them then they could see their kids,” she said. “My staff would provide (information) back to the court and CPS how the visits went so sooner or later the kids could get back home.”

That cut was “the shocker,” Scarpati said, noting that CPS will now have to take over the more than 900 visits a month done by the three Maricopa-based agencies. And CPS announced 620 workers would be laid off, she said.

Scarpati said her agency will step up and “do more with less,” seeking funding from those who can help and donations from the community.

The foster care families she works with have been hit as well, with monthly subsidies going from more than $900 to just over $700 a month starting in March. She hopes the community can help donate clothing and baby items to help ease the blow.

The Family Resource Center that provides preventive classes to families who just want to learn better parenting skills or how to work with special needs children will see a reduction in its budget of $326,000. Scarpati said her staff is looking at which programs will have to be eliminated.

Another service she provided was the Healthy Families services — where moms who may be at risk are identified in the hospital and then given access to resources to help them be better parents. That program was eliminated statewide.

“We had a whole team in the East Valley that did in-home services for at-risk families,” she said. “They were their life line.”

For the first time, Scarpati said she had to lay off people with the cut of that funding.

“The DES cuts have hurt us terribly but we’re determined not to give up our core services, which are prevention services and being there for families in crisis,” Scarpati said. “It’s a good community of people who support us and there are still folks out there who can give.”