September 2015 Newsletter

Notable News

Children are settling into their classes in schools across the Bay Area and BART and Muni are jam-packed with riders recently returned from vacation.  At the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center, summer of 2015—the hottest on record—was one of the busiest.

The impact of increasing economic disparity in San Francisco took a toll on the families we serve —95% of whom are low-income. For those who can’t afford summer camps, or find scarce spots in free programs, summers can be made all the harder by long unstructured days with young children. Families who depend on vital concrete services—like free lunch programs—normally provided by public schools can find already tight budgets stretched to the breaking point.

The Prevention Center has always been there for those families, offering them basic support – food, family dinners, and emergency needs support. Concrete support in times of need is one of five protective factors shown to strengthen families and reduce the risk of child abuse.

• Between May and August, the Prevention Center served 617 vulnerable children and families, with 93 of those families new to us. We were pleased to provide the following essential services:

• 100 client families were helped with concrete needs and support, including bags of donated fresh and dry food, hygiene kits, and bus tokens.

• Highly utilized services included our Children’s Playroom, which served over 200 children, the TALK Line, which provided ongoing phone counseling to 163 parents, and Tuesday Night Dinner, which served 120 family members.

• TALK Line staff and volunteers fielded 914 counseling calls and made over 1700 outgoing calls to clients who requested follow-up support.

Choosing between diapers and food

The Prevention Center is pleased to be one of four agencies working with San Francisco’s Human Services Agency to pilot a Diaper Bank for families receiving CALWorks.

Many low-income families, working hard to stretch every dollar, must make the difficult choice between diapers and food.A recent article in the July 2015 issue of the Atlantic Magazine highlighted the incredible and poignant challenges faced by many low-income parents as they must make a choice many never thought they would have to consider.

The Diaper Bank program helps alleviate this stress, providing up to six packages of diapers per family per month. The Diaper Bank program provides Prevention Center staff  a great opportunity to inform families about the full range of support services we offer through our Children and Family Services Program.

Rallying to send our kids Back to School 

Thanks to the generous support of Old Republic Title Company and Vanguard Properties, 175 backpacks filled to the brim with school supplies were distributed to Prevention Center kids headed back to school this fall. SanDisk Corporation added to the pack with 175 donated flash drives to families with middle and high school students.

Special thanks to Greg DiMartini of Old Republic Title Company, Elaine LaMastra of Vanguard Properties and Gisela Bushey at SanDisk Foundation for their incredible support of our kids!

4th Annual Russian River Ride

This past weekend, 12 cyclists rode 215 miles and climbed over 17,000 feet to support the Prevention Center raising over $43,000!

Special thanks to the following foundations for supporting our work: 

Chauncey and Marion D. McCormick Foundation, Children’s Advocacy Centers of California, David B. Gold Foundation, The HAND Foundation, Hedge Funds Care, Junior League of San Francisco, Maverick Capital Foundation, Negley Flinn Charitable Foundation, Robert and Ruth Halperin Foundation, S.H. Cowell Foundation, Tipping Point Community, Viragh Family Foundation, & World Childhood Foundation.