our elementary and middle schools, and we have 15 wellness programs, which is a collaborative effort with the department of children, youth, and families, and the department public health, and our staffing their includes a full time social worker, two five days, and there's, as well as a full- time community health advocates worker. i know you have questions for us later, and we will discuss more on this at a later date. supervisor olague: great. thank you. i am writing down a few questions now. sharon bell. >> good afternoon. san francisco family and children services was selected about 14 years ago as one of six national sites to participate in a federal program called green

book initiative, which was also known in a complicated way as the effective intervention in domestic violence and maltreatment cases, which really says that san francisco needed to come together with community partners, our public and private agencies, and understand the dynamics of how violence in the home impacted child abuse and impacts of violence on children. it was clear that we urgently needed to come together and try to collaborate inside our agency, outside our agency, and with our service providers. i am glad to say that in the 14 years, we have for the developed a great relationship with a lot of our partners so that we can collaborate on almost every case that comes up, especially those where there is police intervention. i think as we come to meetings and me quite a bit during the

month, it is clear that everyone understands that children cannot be saved -- safe unless the people who care for them can feel safe. we have used our green book initiative as a step to make sure that we provide all the kinds of services that children and their families need. for example, in child protective services, we have a training curriculum that is ongoing. we require 40 training hours in two years for every single child protective supervisor and worker, and as ongoing domestic violence, how you access services, etc. we try to coordinate delivery with our partners. we try to improve awareness and intervention. we have not only interdepartmental and community

partnerships, but we understand that with the fast-moving different ways services can be provided, we really have a lot of flexibility to make sure that as evidence-based services become available to all our services, we look at them and are able to interact and provide the training to make them part of our delivery. in terms of our internal policies, we do have a hot line and social workers with ongoing supervisors and managers who are on call 24 hours seven days a week, 365 days a year. we had a response time of 10 days or two hours. we really address whether a child is safe or at risk. we really work with the protective parent, and we do have mou's with many of the

individuals that have presented today, foster care mental health, child crisis, police. we also have one with adult probation. they call us when someone we have been working with has been convicted or is getting out of prison or jail. we work with the d.a. we work with victim witness, our resource centers, our multi- disciplinary interview, which we all for dissipate in. we also have team decision- making meetings and family team meetings where we come together and bring everybody to the table. the parents, supportive families, supportive friends, and agencies, to see if we can make a planned so that the family can be an architect of what is going to happen to their families. we also have, with recurring cases, we make sure that on each file, we have a purple star, so as the case comes back in and a

social worker picks up the case, they immediately can recognize that this is a family that has previous or current domestic violence, and in our referrals before social workers go out, it is in our alert so we always ask every single reporter if there is prior or present dv. five years ago, 40% of our referrals had about 45%. we are up to about 65 or 70% of every call that comes into the hotline reports some kind of domestic violence. i brought today our domestic violence liaison. i would like her to talk a little bit about how she works directly with our families. also, kathy baxter from the child abuse council who will talk about our child assessment there that is in the process of being developed.

>> afternoon. i worked at the reilly center. i would first like to thank you so much for having this forum open. there is a lot of passion in the room. i would just like to say that i am thank all to have the opportunity to collaborate with family and children's services for all survivors being exposed to violence. together, we strive to develop training, policy, and procedures that allow protective social workers to successfully and holistic we identify, assess, and intervene in cases of violence where a child maltreatment has occurred or is likely to occur. our collaboration seeks to improve the perception of domestic violence and child maltreatment with the families we serve. i say this piece because many times in the direct service i

do, my families are very scared, very fearful, and it is nice to be able to say that we're here from the community and we are working collaboratively, and if they do not want to talk to the protective social worker, it is ok, but can we explore alternate options? what can we do to create a safe space to enable the collaboration and conversation of safety? because the reilly center is stationed on site with protective social workers, we are given the immediate opportunity to intercept and provide services. many times, i can go out on up to four homes service -- home visits a day and provided media services because riley center is one of three domestic service agencies that has an emergency shelter, a transitional shelter that is up to 18 months, as well as counseling, support groups,

and our consultants on site with cps family and children's services. the one piece i would like to close with is that many times, what i strive to do in the training is remind all of us that we are planting seeds of safety and not harvesting crops. i think that is very vital when we see reoccurring families come in. we want to break down that shame, a breakdown any barriers and began to understand and conceptualize the barriers as to why survivors state. thank you for your time, and if there are any questions, i will be your. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i will be brief. i was asked -- sharon asked me to step up because the center is a nonprofit that has been around for 36 years.

we are the lead agency for the sake start initiative, which works for children who have been exposed to domestic violence and community violence. the other piece that i'm here to talk about is that we hope within the next couple of months to open a children's advocacy center and a center for youth wellness. i want to thank you for all your help on this. we're hoping to break ground and be open next year. april is child abuse prevention month. we want to thank you so much. i just brought you some awareness pins and some awareness information. it is also shaken babies awareness month. sitting closely to all the people we work with, as sources say that the work is multi- disciplinary. it is the public agencies and private agencies. we have a partnership. we work together. i started 36 years ago at the

child abuse council, and no one talked about child abuse. we had no protocols, no centers, nothing. when you look over what we have done in this community in 36 years, i think we should feel proud of what we're doing. we know what the problem is. we know what child, is. we know the work that needs to be done, and with your support, we can continue to advance and be a model for the rest of the country. thanks so much. supervisor avalos: i just heard that you were recognized nationally for your work in child prevention services. is that correct? well, congratulations. [applause]

supervisor olague: i would like to thank the speaker is again for all the information you have provided us with. i will go ahead and open it up for public comment. we will have questions afterward, so i thank you all for waiting and listening to all of the above. [reading names] >> good afternoon, supervisors. i like to just start off by saying thank you, thank you, thank you. i would like to thank the staff work on putting this hearing together. i want to sit first and foremost before i get started, we are talking about human life. over the last 10 days, probably,

we have had in the african- american and brown community no less than about four homicides. i want to say that we are standing here in honor of those lives. i will not talk too much, but i do want to fill in some gaps in terms of some of the content. this has been a very passionate issue. i am sorry that this chamber is not full. the issue we are focusing on today directly and tangentially impacts a number of your colleagues in a very direct way, and i would hope that this information to make it shared with supervisor cohen from district 10 where we have had a high prevalence of homicide, but also jane kim because we are starting to see more vulnerable populations move into district 6. having said that, i want to again validate that supervisor avalos and i have been on this walk many times. i would imagine even you today heard some new things in terms of our struggles and resources

and the capacity to create what we just heard is the national model. despite the continued prevalence of homicides, i want to say that children are at the beginning. we have to make an affirmative commitment to primary, but we also have to look at secondary and tertiary strategies of intervention. we have every single thing we need right here. that is the good news. i touch bases with my landlord just a minute ago as we were listening to this and said, "listened out. there is an opportunity here." in relation to this, we heard certain things, and i want you to think about this in terms of our developing strategy. one is poverty.

poverty, poverty, poverty, and economic access to mitigate some of these behavior's. the other thing we heard was that there are geographic areas of prevalence, and that is where mr. alvarez comes in. it is not his book is to be a social service model, but it is imperative that he have the resources to deal with mitigating these incidents on his property -- it is not his focus to be a social service model. the talk about intervention -- individual case intervention, but what happens is when somebody gets killed in sunnydale, because of the contiguous nature of the buildings, everybody is impacted. so if i am at 170 retail, residence at 172, 174, 176 are also impacted. we have to understand the way of getting to those kids who are

exposed, who are not directly part of the crime scene but are additionally exposed. last thing i want to say to you in terms of looking at this developing strategy is the continuity between families -- whole family systems, as you have heard repeatedly. you cannot deal with a child without dealing with what is in the family. we have to build strategies around the community. one of the things that might be helpful is looking at the role of our police as helpers' and as part of a community. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. >> if i could just say this -- in terms of the police, let's bring them home so they are integrated in the fabric of our community. thank you very much. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. >> i am with the village project. i want to thank you for bringing

this to the forefront. we are experiencing right now the end result of violence in our immediate community. i work with kids 14 and under, and one of the things -- the violence is so systemic, and it is multi-generational. for these little kids, it is embedded in their dna. i see it every day, working with the kids. just recently, the incident that happened last week in the western addition with the little guy was killed -- his little nephew is in my program. i always -- not always, but i realize when something violent is -- has happened, the kids go to school, and then their behavior, their personality is different. i have kids that you are doing their homework, and they just go

into this trance, and you have to bring their attention back. all of this is the impact of violence, and it has become so repetitive to them, that they have become sort of immune. to have a little 7-year-old kid having a conversation about violence -- where is your mom? she is in jail? no, she is not. she is dead. they have become so immune to this violence. yes, i'm happy to see such a forum being developed that the attention is being focused on that, but also, we have so many services available. i would like to figure out a way -- ellis is thinking, maybe we have a big bell with something violent happens, you read it, and all the services are sent into the city. we formed a coalition over the

last few weeks around the current death in our neighborhood, murder in our neighborhood, but i want to see -- and i want to invite the speakers to come out to our healing circle this thursday at new liberation church. we cannot just react immediately and temporarily because we have had violence in our neighborhood. it has to be ongoing, and we have to be able to respond and stop it before it escalates. the summer is approaching. the one thing about the violence that drives our shooters and that type of thing -- there is always retaliation. even in our community after the funeral -- i thought it was a block party there was so much going on. we need those services when they hear about it. how do we get them over there? to immediately -- it is just us right now. i would like to hear and see

these people -- i want to see them come down and see firsthand because maybe the people who need it are not going to them. maybe we need to bring it to the people. so the people i deal with in public housing. i hope we can continue this coalition, not just when we hear that somebody has been killed, that it is ongoing. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. next speaker please. supervisor olague: [reading names] >> i am chief executive officer at west side community services. i think that i and we have to le fatalities we have each week in the city, the disproportionate number of african americans that are killed in the us fatalities

-- and does fatalities and the delivery system. we are children impacted by violence at the structural intersection marginalizes property. they have told of the community with the outcome will prevent youths from becoming involved, basically preventing them from becoming criminals. we look at what rate looks like. i don't think we can be served now in a way that meets our needs.

people that are working with social workers, those are considered to be threats to the community. the people need to be educated at around when these organizations offer, and it took me a long time to understand the social workers cover a range of different types of people. for me growing up, social workers came to my house. i wonder how much help they are getting in the system the luck of the community and look at flaws and characters of the

family they serve rather than the reality of the experience. when you combine this with low expectations, lets just give the community something rather than how we restore and double the community that h been beaten down. >> i am a legislative aide for supervisor olague. i wanted to read a public statement that we got from the youth commissioner for district 5. i will read what he submitted to us. i am a youth commissioner from district 5 and a member of the commission was a youth justice committee. i would like to ask for yourself

ending in the senseless violence impacting the community. we had another -- there are afraid because of the constant threat of violence. some recommendations are increasing support for youth employment, making sure that it is a safe place for people to travel. and having more creative activities. he said to please call him because he hopes to be of service in any way. >> i work with west side community services and i am a program coordinator for the community case management

program. we offer case management and free mental health services. i wanted to suggest or see how we could form some kind of relationship with the city department and the community organizations. if they are getting a call for a homicide, how can it come down to us to modify its -- and motivate and work with that family. what kind of services do you need? i would like to see if there is a way we can formulate some kind of plan so that when these things happen, the agencies in the community are aware and are able to work with them. supervisor olague: [reading

names] >> i also work for westside community services, and i am going to let you guys know what it is that we do. they offer free mental-health services to a predominantly african american families and individuals in the western addition. holly offer is to the kids at the age of three, and we offer therapy and the class. we have a psychiatrist on site where we have case management and if you need help with homes, truancy, that is what we do.

>> in good afternoon, supervisors. one of the points is that there is a lot of agencies, and we don't know about them. the sentences go resident, right now working with agencies, we feel the need to step up and do everything because there is not a lot going on. for the first time we applied for funding, we did not have any lesbian, gay, or bisexuals on the board of directors.

we've been around for 12 years and we didn't want city funding, but we are developing a community care programmer we can bring the services together. about why the community agencies to case management. we can take the lead on a long case management, they do the short term, and the faith agency has to step up. and we can take care of it long term. we are working on this model, i will be happy to share it. we sat down with different services, to make this model an

actual model. it is now the department of public health. the dph trained us on how to approach, sides. we just need to come together because weather is bayview, hunters point, if the violence is in the western addition, with everybody being angry, i don't know we have a real problem. let's take the lead on the violence, thank you.

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