In south Los Angeles, families living in the Wilmington neighborhood face the effects of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, substance abuse, gang strife and other crime, and inadequate access to primary health care and human services. In the inner-city neighborhood of Norwood, poverty, transience, linguistic isolation, crime, and the fear of crime are barriers to community development. Wilmington and Norwood exemplify conditions that destabilize families—creating a higher risk that children will be removed from their homes and placed in foster care. If Casey can help build stronger, safer communities with access to child care, health care, housing, and education, it will reduce the number of children who enter the system.

Cultivating neighborhoods
Poverty and crime do not have the same root causes or the same effects in every neighborhood, nor do these problems have a uniform solution. In Wilmington and Norwood, Casey’s first priority is to talk to the families who are living there now—to hear in their own words what their neighborhoods need.

Casey is prepared to listen, and to provide resources and knowledge that will help create healthy, vigilant, stable communities. Examples of the kinds of services Casey may facilitate include:

• Low cost healthcare for children
• Parenting classes
• English as a Second Language training for parents
• Child daycare provider training
• Case management services
• Referrals to local organizations that provide family support services

Working with Los Angeles’ local organizations
Neighborhood-based prevention can only be accomplished with the participation of all members of a community. Casey will work with the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services and with local organizations like the South Bay Center for Counseling and Community Partners. For the next several years, Casey will work to help these organizations increase their capacity for providing services to Wilmington and Norwood.