Each year, close to 3,000 children are removed from their homes in Pima, Cochise, and Santa Cruz counties, and sent to foster care placements.
Removals happen quickly; usually children are on their way to a relative or foster parent minutes after staff from Arizona’s Department of Child Safety arrive. Children grab just a few belongings quickly, often tossed into a trash bag because it’s all they have.
Kinship parents — relatives of the children — usually have little time to prepare and often lack financial resources, food or clothing. Foster parents, while usually more prepared, may still lack essentials.
Most children see removal as the worst day of their lives, no matter how loving or ready their new home is.
For more than 40 years, Aviva Children’s Services has met the needs of foster care families. Aviva’s Behavioral Health team helps foster families establish stable and healthy relationships through counseling, in-home parent training and coaching, or programs geared to children of any age.
Aviva distributes more than 31,000 emergency need items annually, including diapers, formula, underwear, socks, pants, shirts, dresses, hygiene kits, school supplies, and food. Aviva even provides furniture, computers and assistance with emergency home or car repairs when foster families are in need.
The Aviva Divas volunteer team’s annual Sew-a-Thon produces more than 3,500 bags that Department of Child Safety caseworkers stock in the trunks of their cars. When children are removed, essential belongings can be transported with dignity instead of in trash bags.
When children arrive at their new foster home they find a Diva’s colorful, handmade quilt and a stuffed animal on their new bed. The Divas want to ensure these children know that they are cared for by their community.
The pandemic has hit families hard, and many more children are at risk of additional stress, neglect and abuse. We are doing whatever we can to help every child and family who comes through our doors.
Aviva Children’s Services receives the bulk of its financial support from individuals who donate through the Arizona Foster Care Tax Credit. A $10 donation can purchase new underwear. A $25 donation can provide school supplies.
A $500 donation can purchase a computer to allow a child in foster care to participate in remote schooling. Cash donations qualify for the Arizona state foster care tax credit; an individual can give up to $500 annually, or up to $1,000 per married couple.
