A Kid's Place
Emergency Assessment Shelter
Why build a shelter?
At 7:30 pm a child abuse investigator with Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has picked up six year old Alexis and her two younger brothers. Reports of suspicious bruises and her odd behavior at school have resulted in Alexis’s removal from her home. The investigator found her and her brothers living in squalid conditions with trash, rotting food and feces in every room. He was relieved to know that he had removed Alexis after the medical exam showed signs of sexual abuse. It is now 10:00 pm and placement social worker has yet to find an available foster home to place Alexis and her brothers for the night...now it is midnight and the family of siblings must be split up and sent to three separate homes that can take them for a few days only…
There are often many long nights like these as investigators and social workers try to provide services to children removed due to suspicions of abuse, neglect, or abandonment in Hillsborough County. This is unacceptable for the children that must wait and the dedicated workers that struggle to find beds for them, it is even more difficult with sibling groups. These children need safe beds, stability and love during such a traumatic and frightening time in their lives. As a community, we can do better.
Working in partnership, Kids Charity of Tampa Bay, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, Department of Children & Families Services, Hillsborough Kids, Inc., and individual community leaders are trying to resolve this issue. After much thought and research, our goal is to build a five home, 60 bed emergency shelter in the Brandon area where these children will be housed for maximum 30 days (two 12 bed homes are designated shelters, the remaining homes will be respite shelters and group residence for infants and toddlers.) The shelter will assess the medical, psychological and personal needs of these children. Providing immediate beds and eliminating the bottle neck of children needing services until their cases can be determined by the courts, this shelter will also be a warm, safe, and loving place because we will have designed it that way. The operative word throughout the development of A Kid’s Place is partnership. Literally every agency serving children has been involved in some aspect of the development of the program and the design of A Kid’s Place. We cannot improve the services to our children without the knowledge and competency of these partners.
Located on a beautiful wooded five acre lot, the "emergency assessment shelter" will include five - 12 bed homes, an administration building with assessment and medical facilities, staffed classrooms and recreational areas.
Kids Charity of Tampa Bay has established a Founder’s Campaign to raise the funds needed for this shelter. We are starting from the ground up with land, bricks, mortar, in-kind and monetary gifts. Details can be obtained by calling for more information.
Our children truly need your commitment to make this dream a reality. Please call me on my cell phone at (813) 629-5205 and I will answer your questions personally. I am passionately committed to this project because it is the right thing to do. We cannot tolerate that our children are left waiting for long hours after they have already been horribly mistreated. May God bless!
Sincerely,
Dottie Berger MacKinnon
To support this worthy project, contact Kids Charity of Tampa Bay!