CALICO during COVID-19
This is a stressful time for all of us. To help here are some resources that may help you or families you know during this anxious time.
First, stress relief tips during this period for both children and parents from the California Office of the Surgeon General.
Second, resources about supporting children during this pandemic, how community leaders can support their networks, and ideas to keep kids and teens entertained from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.
CALICO is still serving vulnerable children. We are balancing families', partner and staff safety with children’s needs for help. While most of us are working remotely on day-to-day basis, we are on-call to serve children at our office who need immediate services. We also are adopting new technology that lets us continue less urgent work remotely. At the same time, we are preparing for our work to get more difficult. Experts predict there will be a dramatic increase in child abuse reports once the shelter-in-place restrictions lift. It is vital that we prepare now to be able to quickly meet this surge of cases when it occurs.
While we continue this urgent work, we are doing so with fewer resources. Due to current restrictions, we had to cancel one of our most important annual fundraisers, Run for CALICO during the Oakland Running Festival. We know this is a difficult time for all. Yet any assistance you can provide CALICO now so that we can maintain adequate resource levels to continue our work and prepare to respond to this expected increase would be so appreciated. Your support of our work is more necessary than ever.
You might not realize this, but you really are an important member of our community response to abused children. We can help each other get through this challenging time. All of us at CALICO believe in the idea of teams. As a team, we come together to help abused children achieve justice and healing. As a team, we will all navigate through this strange and unprecedented time together.