Funding cuts threaten services provided by the Children’s Service Society of Utah

Gabriella Caro, a mother of two small children, sits in the Children’s Service Society of Utah’s office as her 18-month-old son Theo looks at a book about fire trucks.

Caro is an immigrant from Chile and has been living in Utah for five years. Along with Theo, she and her husband have a newborn baby named Luca. As she adjusts to being a mother and works to help her kids the best she can, she and her family have been working with CSS’ Home Visitation Program.

The Home Visitation program, which has recently experienced federal funding cuts, provides in-home early childhood education and family support services to low-income and at-risk families with children ages zero to 5.

“So we come into the parents homes, and we focus on a curriculum, and we help them pinpoint areas of the child’s development that they want to focus on,” said Sammy Holder, the home visitation director at CSS.

Their home educators teach activities that focus on development, such as developing fine motor skills or associating colors. The program also focuses on the family’s well-being as a whole, helping the parents, who are often immigrants or refugees, navigate the system.

“They helped us to build a strong relationship with the kids,” Caro said.

What is the Children’s Service Society of Utah?

CSS has been around since 1884 and is the oldest child welfare agency in Utah. While its programs have changed over the years, the goal of the agency has always been to provide services that are not otherwise provided in the community.

“Our focus still the same, is to make sure the children and family are doing OK and the children are in safe spaces in general, that whoever the adult is taking care of the child, they have the tools necessary to ensure that the child’s in a safe environment,” said Encarni Gallardo, the organization’s executive director.

CSS has five different programs, home visitation, adoption and clinical, building blocks, GRANDfamilies and care about childcare.

Most of CSS’ programs receive some sort of grant, whether it is funding from a federal, state or county level, and some things receive private funding.

“I believe personally that all of our programs are equally important to the community and to our mission of keeping families safe,” Gallardo added.

Holder emphasized that the employees at CSS are deeply involved in the lives of the families they serve, and everyone working there is doing it because they want to make a difference.

“We are in our families’ homes, or we’re doing these workshops with them. We’re crying with them. We’re growing with them, and we see the impacts that our programs can make,” Holder said.

Funding cuts to the home visitation program

Two federal grants that provide a major chunk of the budget for the home visitation program were recently cut without any warning.

These grants were through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and came with contracts that lasted into next year. The two grants made up $125,000 of the program’s $225,000 budget. One of the grants was revoked on March 24, but CSS was not informed until March 26.

Gallardo shared that when they receive government funding it is always done through contracts, and typically they know ahead of time whether or not they will have funding. But these funding cuts came without any warning, causing problems for the agency because they were not able to plan what they would do without those grants.

Gallardo said that funding cuts like this create a lot of distrust between the organization and the government.

Tara Romney Barber, the adoption and clinical program director said that the other programs are preparing the best they can in case their funding also gets cut. She added that if they aren’t able to provide their services, the families they serve will end up costing the state money because more children will be entering the foster care system.

“So funding wise, we don’t know what it’s going to look like, but we do know that it’s going to end up costing the state and the government money either way,” Romney Barber said.

These cuts make it so the agency isn’t able to staff as many people and aren’t able to provide all of the services that they provide to families in need.

“If you believe in the work we do, please consider donating, advocating or spreading the word,” Gallardo said. “Every bit of support helps ensure that we can continue making a difference where it matters most.”

CSS is not the only organization in the state that is going through such funding cuts. Holder said that some of the community providers they refer their clients to are also losing funding and resources.

“As a result, not only are their primary resources impacted, but so are their secondary and tertiary supports. This ripple effect will significantly disrupt every essential resource these families rely on to navigate their daily lives,” Holder said.

How the Home Visitation program helps parents and children

Caro and her family are visited by their home educator, Kat Lora, once or twice a month depending on need, but Caro and Lora are consistently in contact with one another. Lora has been with CSS for two years and has been working with Caro since she started the program 15 months ago.

“We learn a lot about the age appropriate milestone so they teach us activities and how develop the activities and How to include that activities in our routines,” Caro said.

She added that along with the developmental and educational services, the program helps her find parenting groups, as well as medical care and mental health support.

“We form bonds with the families as a whole. So it’s a very fulfilling role, not only like for the family, but for myself as well. I get to learn a lot and whatever challenge we’re facing, we figure it out together,” Lora said.

Caro shared that through CSS’ guidance she was able to help Theo learn how to crawl and walk, the program has also helped with his language development as Caro and her husband are raising him to be bilingual.

The educators tailor the program to each family’s individual needs and also follow the Parents as Educators curriculum.

Last year the home visitation program served 56 families.

Holder said that when they are able to get into these homes and work with families they are able to help set both the children and the parents up for success.

“I like to think of our services as preventative services,” she added. “It makes the family better able to contribute to society and spread that awareness and just prevent child abuse, prevent depression in the house, or mental health disorders,” Holder said.