The San Diego field office of Casey Family Programs has served this largely urban county of 3 million since 1993.

Most of the children we serve live in foster families, while others are in the care of relatives. We also provide services to youth making the transition out of foster care at age 18.

One-third of the people living here are Hispanic, half are Caucasian, 15-20 percent are African American, and 5-10 percent are Asian American.

Building a community of families and staff
We look for ways to connect our youth and families with each other and our staff.

One way is to invite foster parents to share a meal and give Casey feedback at our quarterly “Dinner with Management.” As a result, one group of parents is helping us to recruit future foster parents.

Partnering to improve the big picture
An important goal for us is to improve outcomes for youth in foster care by improving the systems that serve them. To reach our goal, we collaborate with community organizations and San Diego County. One focus is expanding the systems’ capacity to serve more youth by:

• Providing a continuum of quality transition services.
• Recruiting more foster families—particularly families of color.

One of our community partnerships is the Tutor Connection, which gets tomorrow’s teachers invested in helping foster children to succeed.

Youth get tutoring help every semester from 100-150 education majors at California State University-San Marcos. In turn, a Casey staff member teaches the tutors about education issues specific to youth in foster care.