Los Angeles— Kinship in Action (KIA), a partnership between Casey Family Programs and Community Coalition that helps prevent the need for foster care by supporting relatives who are raising their family’s vulnerable children, will celebrate the opening of its new South Los Angeles location Thursday, July 24, from 3 to 5 p.m.

The new Kinship in Action location, 3723 South La Brea Ave., marks a major step forward for the unique community-based program that supports relative caregivers in South Los Angeles. Developed under the leadership of Yakiciwey Mitchell, senior director, Casey Family Programs Los Angeles field office, and Marqueece Harris-Dawson, executive director, Community Coalition, the center helps children and their families succeed though assistance and referrals for educational, legal, medical and mental health services, as well as support groups.

Families, youth and community members will attend the opening and tours of the facility will be available.

Since its opening in 2004, KIA has helped to support children in relative care in Los Angeles Service Planning Area 6 (SPA 6) through programs that assist grandparents and other relatives raising children who otherwise would be placed in non-relative foster care. Additional services include Family Group Conferencing (bringing family members together to make decisions about the future of their child or their relative’s child), and Powerful Families (classes in financial literacy, advocacy and leadership skills).

“We are proud to be opening this new site where we can concentrate our efforts in support of the large number of kinship families in South Los Angeles and continue to support children growing up in nurturing family environments” said Mitchell. “We are especially proud of the partnership with Community Coalition and the many other local organizations that have helped in this effort.”

Casey Family Programs, the largest non-profit operating foundation devoted solely to foster care, has developed a 2020 Strategy which includes:

• Safely reducing the number of youth in foster care by 50% by the year 2020
• Reinvesting the savings to strengthen families and improve outcomes in education, employment and mental health of youth in care and youth transitioning out of care.

Nationally, an estimated 2.5 million children are being raised by grandparents and other relatives because their parents are unable to care for them.

Kinship programs help keep youth safely out of the child welfare system and maintain family and cultural bonds. Many kinship families, however, do not receive the same level of support that foster families receive. Nation-wide, nearly 25% of all children in out-of-home care are being raised by relatives other than their parents.

In Los Angeles, there are more than 12,000 children in relative guardianship or relative foster care placement. “We see every day the sacrifices made by grandparents and other relatives in order for these children to be raised at home, with kin and in their community, said Marqueece Harris-Dawson. “Kinship In Action is about empowering them to continue to support their families,” he said.

Casey Family Programs is committed to strengthening kinship care in California and across the country. A Casey position paper released earlier this year details federal policy recommendations. They include; expanding navigator programs such as Kinship In Action to all states; supporting separate licensing standards for relative caregivers; supporting federal subsidized guardianship program; providing incentives for permanent placement of children in foster care with relatives caregivers; and giving Native American tribes authority to directly receive federal foster care and adoption funds.

For more information about Casey’s efforts on Kinship Care, read our white papers.

About Community Coalition
Community Coalition’s mission is to transform the social and economic conditions in South Los Angeles that foster addiction, crime, violence and poverty by building a mass-based community institution that involves residents in creating, influencing and changing public policy.