Shelter is the emergency room of the State's system of care for children and youth. Shelter is accessed by children and youth of all ages. Some counties lack adequate assessment, case management, and referral services. Too often the shelter setting does not provide the level of structure needed for high risk youth. The new juvenile crime prevention funding for shelter needs to be continued, traditional funding sources maintained, and additional federal matching funds leveraged.
Some counties have little or no shelter services for younger children.
Their needs include emergency placements, sibling placements, foster homes for special populations, and culturally specific shelter programs. Community mobilization, training, and technical assistance are needed to help individual counties use new and existing resources to develop a coordinated and integrated continuum of community-based shelter services. The Partnership has been working toward building a continuum of community-based shelter services. It describes a process for the continued administration of shelter services at the local middle management level. It proposes a community-based and operated system of shelter services tailored to the needs of the local area.