Next month a major initiative to help vulnerable children and their families will begin in San Diego under a partnership between three prominent organizations.

The collaboration between the Clinton Foundation’s Health Matters Initiative, San Diego County, and San Diego Foundation, will focus on the foster care and juvenile justice programs, particularly what sort of factors lead to the disparities that cause some populations disproportionately entangled in these systems.

The three-year effort is expected to help diagnose what the county does well to assist its most vulnerable children, where it needs improvement, and then recommend changes.

“We are really looking at diving deeply at what are some of the causes, elevating this issue, and elevating this topic,” said Gillian Sealy, the CEO of the Clinton Health Matters Initiative, a part of the Clinton Foundation.


While the campaign is still in early planning stages, some of the details about the collaboration, and the potential benefits to the parties and the people they serve, are starting to emerge.

“We’re looking and want to determine that the systems do everything they can so that those children who are living in the system are living the best quality of life possible, and we’re strengthening the families of youth engaged in the system,” said Kathlyn Mead, the president and CEO of the San Diego Foundation.

Next month the Clinton Health Matters Initiative will convene in San Diego with county officials, the San Diego Foundation to begin the process of analyzing the foster and juvenile justice systems, and will meet with public health organizations, community groups, and faith-based organizations, to discuss factors that impact the success of the foster care and juvenile justice systems.

These groups will be charged, based on the data they provide, with developing a plan to improve these services, Sealy said.


The effort could help address some of the disparities that different communities face, Supervisor Greg Cox said. For one, it could identify reasons why a disproportionately high number of African Americans are in the foster care and juvenile probation systems, he said.

“I would hope that one of the deliverables we would find is a decrease in out-of-home placement of African Americans,” he said. “That’s pretty easy to measure. We’d see a decrease in percentage of African Americans in our juvenile court system, our juvenile diversion system, and improve the quality of life, and keep families together,” he said.

Last weekend Cox and Mead went to Arkansas to meet with the Clinton Foundation, including former President Bill Clinton and Sealy.

The process could result in San Diego implementing successful programs from other jurisdictions, the development of a report about what works well here that might work elsewhere. The overall goal is a reduction in disparities and an improvement of existing programs in San Diego.


The work isn’t expected to cost taxpayers any additional money beyond what is already allocated for public health programs.

“The good news is that it doesn’t really cost us financially. Certainly staff time will be focused on it,” Cox said. County employees, he noted, already work to address disparities amongst residents. The San Diego Foundation is providing $900,000 to cover expenses with funding through private donors, Mead said.

As the May meeting approaches, the county and San Diego Foundation are scheduling meetings with child welfare groups, community leaders, and faith-based organizations to hear about their experiences serving children, Mead said.


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