(ALTADENA, Calif.) July 30, 2020 – As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, Los Angeles County-based foster care/adoption agency and mental health provider, FIVE ACRES, is in need of resources for its critical Adoption Promotion and Support Services (APSS) program, which serves Altadena and the greater Los Angeles community.
“The Adoption Promotion and Support Services program cultivates an organic community of over 80 foster and adoptive families who are brought together by a common collective experience that is unique to them as individual families,” said Five Acres Division Director Cesar Gomez, who is a licensed clinical social worker. “These commonalities and relationships can be life-long in their duration and are at the heart of what makes an ongoing community of committed families.”
Five Acres is making an appeal for the following resources from the community for its APSS program: family needs (diapers, baby wipes), summer arts & crafts (glue sticks, crayons, coloring books), funds for streaming movie services (Netflix, Disney+), summer snacks (granola bars, popcorn, juice boxes), indoor games (board games, toy race cars), and outdoor games (chalk, scooters, bikes).
Gomez said, “Additionally, gift card donations to fost-adopt families can be most helpful right now. This is especially true for big box stores like Walmart where fost-adopt families can requisition different kinds of life necessities such as groceries, clothes, and cleaning/sanitizing supplies as needed.”
For an entire list of items needed, visit https://5acres.org/apss-covid-19-needs/. Donations will assist foster care and adoptive families who are supported by APSS and do not have the resources due to the pandemic.
Five Acres believes children thrive and heal best within healthy, permanent families. The pathway to permanency can include reunification with a birth parent, a relative or adoption by a foster-to-adopt family. The agency’s programs support families throughout the adoption process as well as during post-adoption. Five Acres strengthens existing families and works tireless to find loving, permanent families for children in need.
Gomez said, “Fost-adopt families provide unconditional love, safety, support, and grace to abused and neglected children who are in desperate need of all these critical qualities in their lives. All children everywhere require these life ingredients to truly flourish.”
To learn more about Five Acres or to support the agency’s efforts, visit 5acres.org.
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More About Five Acres’ APSS Program
APSS offers multiple regularly scheduled dedicated support groups for fost-adopt children, fost-adopt parents, and LGBTQ+ fost-adopt youth. Five Acres is proud of the caliber of its support groups, which are provided by dedicated facilitators who incorporate thoughtful group curriculums, and which are very well attended, including virtually under the current pandemic conditions. APSS client families can be referred for adoption specialty mental health services, including individual therapy, family therapy, and rehabilitation services to help adoptees and their families receive high quality client care. APSS also offers all fost-adopt families adoption specialty case management services that are in place for as long as the families need them for the purposes of needed ongoing support.
About Five Acres
Since 1888, Five Acres has protected the most vulnerable members of our community: children. Originally founded in downtown Los Angeles as an orphanage, Five Acres was initially created to offer safety to children who had no home. In time, our mission expanded to also focus on the well-being and mental health of our clients who were increasingly coming to us as a result of abuse or neglect.
Having grown to an agency caring for more than 10,000 children and family members annually across six counties, we now strive for permanency—a permanent, loving home—for all children in our care. The three pillars of safety, well-being and permanency provide the framework for all our programs and guide our steps as we develop even more effective means of caring for children and families in crisis.