LAKEPORT >> A more than $2 million contract between the county and Redwoods Children’s Services, Inc., was approved by the Lake County Board of Supervisors.
The contract, which will last from Jan. 1 of this year to June 30, 2019, will provide family wraparound services intended to reduce the entry of children into the foster care and the probation system.
According to Lake County Social Services Director Caroline Huchingson, previously ineligible families and at risk children will be provided intervention services.
In September, the supervisors approved a Memorandum of Understanding between state and county social services and probation departments, which allowed the county department to participate in the Title IV-E California Well-Being Project.
“We are participating with eight other counties … for this special program,” Huchingson said. “It enables for flexibility in how child protective services in funded.”
The program is designed to add efficiencies over time. In the first year of the contract, the program will be provided to 12 families and will cost an estimated $127,000. After the first year, the number of families will increase up to total of 60 by the final year, with annual costs totaling approximately $392,000 the second year and $494,000 for the remaining two years.
Lake County Social Services Deputy Director Kathy Maes said the focus of the program is on the mental health of children, and will be a “lower level wraparound program that will focus on the family” by providing individualized services with the self-sustainability being the end goal.
“We are expanding on wraparound services we already have,” Maes said.
The board unanimously approved the contract with a 5-0 vote.
No members of the public offered any comment.
Contact J. W. Burch, IV at 900-2022.
