Teenagers have been admitted ton
Diego County's emergency shelter
for children over the last two
years than in the recent past.
This comes at a time when reporf
physical abuse and neglect are up as well.
Children can end up in the
system as a result,
and that can be especially tough on teens.
This is our all of our kids that have
been with us over the years andr
adopted children here in the mi.
We have all of their adopted adoption
day photos. Resource parents.
He used to be known as a foster parent.
Now we're resource parents.
More than 20 years ago, she andr
husband first opened their homea
couple of neighborhood teens whe
mother was having a rough time.
How many children have you?
Have you fast. We're in the 20s.
Yeah, I think of 20 or 21
maybe all trying to heal,
but all of them that we've workd
with have always just really wad
somebody to to be there for the.
We absolutely have a need for
more resource families. Kimberly
Giardina is director of child welfare
services for the San Diego Couny
Health and Human Services Agenc.
Our goal is always to get kids back home
with their families if it's safe to do so.
That doesn't always work,
and it's a greater challenge
to find a home for a teen.
If grandma's caring for that
teenager and and things really
start to escalate and get diffi,
it can be really hard to to figure out how
to support and sustain that placement.
Same thing with a foster home.
So we've definitely seen more
teens going to polinski on a on,
what we call a change of placemt
where we're needing to find a
different level of care for that use.
The Polinski Center has been San Diego
County's emergency shelter for .
For almost 30 years now,
children end up here for various reasons,
from neglect to abuse.
And over the last year or so the
seen an increase in the number of teens.
Numbers obtained by CBS eight through
a public records request show an
increase in physical abuse and neglect
in children of all ages admitted to the
Polinski Center over the past y.
But GR Deena says overall casesf
abuse reported to the county wee
down, but
there were definitely. Which is
sort of the types of abuse and d
the needs that we saw for famil.
Giardina points to pandemic imps
on society and a mental healthce
system that can't keep up.
Add more youth with overdoses.
We've had more youth with really
significant mental health needs,
more use with runaway behavior,
and that can make it harder
for them to sort of stay in a
family like setting placement.
Bouncing from placement to plact
makes it tough for teens to tru,
and as they age out of the syst,
they still need support.
When you're a youth in foster c,
oftentimes there are labels
of being the bad kid.
You did something.
Wrong to get into the system,
and so there's a lot of personal
blame put on a young person.
Simone hits. Monroe knows she went into
the system with her three sibli.
When their mother died,
they were told it was highly unlikely
that they would stay together.
It was heartbreaking and
unfortunate that no one stood up
for us as as a resource parent,
they were able to stay togethert
San Pasqual Academy, San Diego's
residential school for Foster y.
Now Simone is making a differen.
So just in time for Foster Youth
is a supportive, caring communiy
for foster youth, current and
former foster youth ages 18 to .
From food to furniture,
young people in need can find necessities,
but they can also find
connections and a community.
Kenya will tell you it's not
easy to be a resource parent,
but it's not easy for
the kids either. Somebody
who's watching this,
who thinks they could but are fearful.
What would you say to them?
Come in and take some classes and you're
more than welcome to come in and
kind of see what this is all ab.
Teenagers are supposed to make mistakes.
Why they're at home.
That's when you want them to do that.
They're supposed to learn
from those mistakes,
and so they need parents
to help them through that.
And if they don't get that,
then they're making mistakes and
making mistakes and making mist,
and then that brings them into adulthood,
still making those mistakes with
no one to teach them any better.
Has this been rewarding for you?
More so than I could.
Tell you I think it is
Carlo Chichetto CBS 8 News.
The need is real,
so if you'd like to learn more t
becoming a resource parent, heao
sdcaresforkids.com that numbers
that websites here below us.
Jeff Zevely did a really
nice story on Simone heads,
Monroe and just in time for
Foster youth a little while bac.
You can find that on the
zevely zone page as well.
If it's something you're interested in,
get involved a lot of the time s
rough situations that force geto
go into the system and these pas
are the ones who a lot of the te
kind of help uplift them and thn
set them back on the right path.
And one of the things that Kanaya said
is they don't just age out the e
they she's been told by childre,
she's foster.
It's like,
I want a family when I get marr,
I want a family to go back to
for the holidays when adult.
They want connection.
And that's the kind of life youy
be looking at if you're interes.
Absolutely.
Very cool.