Suncoast Voices for Children is stationed in the Pinellas and Pasco County Sheriff’s Office Child Protection Division and provides for the needs of abused and neglected children. When children are first removed from their parents due to abuse and neglect and are taken to the Sheriff’s Office, investigators look for a protective family member who can take custody, otherwise they must be placed in foster care. If children can’t be placed with family, they are much more likely to be placed in foster care outside of their community, away from their school, friends, and activities, and are often separated from their siblings. Sadly, Tampa Bay has the most children in foster care in all of Florida. That’s why Voices is there: to respond immediately to prevent children from entering foster care, provide for basic needs and fun to let these kids be kids, and support young people aging out of foster care to help them break the cycle.
With your help, we can keep children placed safely with family members and provide for their needs when no one else can. You can sponsor the needs of children at their lowest, most difficult time. When you’re their Voice, they will know that someone is listening, and that someone cares.
How to Be A Voice
- Click the “Be A Voice” button.
- At the donation page, click the “Make This A Monthly Gift” box and enter your desired monthly giving amount to enroll in the “Be A Voice” Program. Any amount, no matter how big or small, will make a huge difference for our kids!
- In the note section, you can let us know the type of need you’d like to support: 1. Safe Sleeping & Stability, 2. Infant Care, 3. Let Kids Be Kids, 4. Education or 5. Safe Travel. Pick more than one if you’d like!
- Each month, your donation will be automatically collected along with donations from every other Voice, and Voices staff will purchase items for abused and neglected children in our community. By working together, we can serve more children than ever!
- You’ll get monthly Be A Voice updates, including how many children are being served for the needs you support and their stories so you know exactly how you’re making a difference. You’ll get updates about goals Voices has set to serve even more children in the community and much more. Please share with family and friends to spread the word!
- If you would prefer to make a one-time donation, just don’t click the “Make This A Monthly Gift” option when you donate.
Here’s a snapshot of ways to Be A Voice:
Need #1: Safe Sleeping & Stability
While it is sometimes necessary for safety reasons for the Sheriff’s Office to remove children from parents, the disruption to the children’s lives caused by the removal is immeasurable. The Sheriff’s Office looks for protective relatives for children, but they often need beds, door alarms and dressers to take custody and may not have the savings to immediately purchase them. Voices provides those essentials to keep children with Sheriff-approved family members instead of foster care.
Need #2: Infant Care
Infants in particular have a lot of items that family members need to take custody of children, and the costs can be too high for some family members, even if they want their grandchildren, nieces and nephews in their home more than anything. Voices keeps a supply of diapers, wipes, formula, bottles and more in the Sheriff’s Office 24/7 so no children have to go into foster care because of a lack of supplies for families.
Need #3: Let Kids Be Kids!
Children in foster care don’t receive funding for activities. Sports, summer camp, music lessons, ballet, karate and more are unavailable without additional support. Voices receives requests all the time from the Sheriff’s Office and community partners who see children falling through the cracks and missing out on fun ways to grow and channel their energy. By choosing this category, you will be supporting activities for kids, birthday celebrations, and other things that aren’t funded for children in foster care.
Need #4: Education
When children are in foster care, they change school often and fall behind as a result. Voices provides tutoring, school supplies and other essentials, and even supports young people who grew up in foster care as they move on to college. Supporting this need will help children access much-needed supports the state doesn’t provide.
Need #5: Safe Travel
Children in foster care need safe, reliable transportation to be placed with protective family members and friends. And when investigators conduct nationwide searches and find safe family members on the other side of the country or the world, children need to be able to get to those approved caregivers.
Here’s a closer look at ways to Be A Voice:
Need #1: Safe Sleeping & Stability
The Sheriff’s Office placed 5 children in the care of their grandmother in the middle of a December night. Hours earlier, their parents were arrested due to domestic violence and substance abuse. The children came with nothing. No clothes, no toys, no car seats. Not even beds to sleep in. The grandmother was on a fixed income in a one-bedroom apartment, so the children were temporarily in sleeping bags and on couches. When the judge reviewed the case the next morning, she was heartbroken, but she said she had no choice: Either the children would have their own beds within 48 hours, or the children would be placed into foster care. Even worse, there were no foster placements available to take 5 children, so the children would be separated during the holidays. But Carol was their Voice! She helped Voices immediately provide 2 bunk beds and a crib to safely keep the children with their grandmother! To support more cases like these, click the “Be A Voice” button, click the “Make This A Monthly Gift” box and let us know in the comments that you want to support Safe Sleeping & Stability!
More Ways Voices Supports Safe Sleeping & Stability:
Bunk Beds Keep Brothers & Sisters Together!
Unfortunately, almost half of siblings who can’t be placed with family members and enter into foster care are placed in separate foster homes. Losing connection to brothers and sisters is one of the most devastating experiences for these children. By providing bunk beds to be delivered and assembled, complete with bedding, we can keep brothers and sisters placed together with a protective relative or friend. Help siblings stay together!
Keep Children Safe in Stable Placements!
By providing locks for medicine cabinets, fire extinguishers, high chairs, alarm systems to protect families in domestic violence situations and much more, we can give children and their caregivers safety and peace of mind.
Safe Sleeping for Newborns
When the Sheriff’s Office gets a call late at night about a small child entering foster care, they can come to Voices at all hours and grab a safe portable crib with sheets so that the child can go directly to a safe family member. Together, we can keep newborns out of foster care. Help kids sleep soundly!
Help Young People Aging Out of Foster Care
When young people in foster care turn 18, they are at a much higher risk of homelessness, incarceration, and a lack of access to health care and other services. By helping young people get set up with basic essentials, we can support them as they secure stable employment and pursue their educational goals.
Need #2: Infant Care
Meet Mary, the founder of the Voices Diaper Squad! Every month, she delivers thousands of diapers to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. Here’s how you can help:
When Sheriff-approved relatives take children into their homes to keep them out of foster care, diapers are a major expense. Delays in state funding assistance can keep caregivers from affording essentials for children. Voices keeps diapers, formula, wipes and more in the Sheriff’s Offices on hand 24 hours a day to support families and keep kids out of foster care.
By raising $212.50 per month toward Infant Needs, Voices can provide for over 750 children in Pinellas County over the next year. That’s less than $4 for each child to have diapers! Once we reach this goal, we will expand to serve more children in Tampa Bay. Help us keep children in diapers, formula and more by clicking “Be A Voice” and let us know you want your donation to go to Infant Care in the comments!
Need #3: Let Kids Be Kids!
Give normalcy to children in foster care!
A little girl was brought into the Sheriff’s Office with her three brothers and sisters in the early hours of the morning due to domestic violence between her parents. The investigator discovered it was the little girl’s birthday, and she was spending it worried about where she would sleep that night. The investigator walked down the hall of the Sheriff’s Office to let Voices staff know that the little girl was sitting with her siblings in the Voices Visitation Room, and she wouldn’t say a word to them besides that she likes unicorns. Within the hour, Voices brought the investigator toys and balloons, and the little girl’s brothers and sisters sang her “Happy Birthday” and she blew out candles on her cake.
Birthdays and holidays are just a few examples of childhood activities the state doesn’t fund. Voices helps by covering the cost of everything from dance lessons to Tae Kwon Do, summer camp to prom dresses, graduation fees to birthday cakes. The needs are different for every child, but Voices is ready to meet them. To help support normalcy for children, click the “Be A Voice” button, select the “Make This A Monthly Donation” box and let us know in the comments that you want to support “Let Kids Be Kids.”
Here are some ways to Let Kids Be Kids:
Give Children Access to Afterschool Activities and Camps!
Children can’t play sports or learn to play an instrument in school without the equipment they need. Ballet lessons, karate, cooking classes and more also have enrollment fees, uniforms and other costs that can make it impossible for children in foster care to participate without your help.
Help Teens Go to the Prom and Walk at Graduation!
Without your assistance, teens may not be able to go to the prom, get their yearbooks, sign up for driver’s ed, or even walk the stage at graduation due to a number of fees that accompany these major milestones.
Help Children Go On School and Family Trips!
When a class field trip comes up, children in foster care have to stay home if there is no funding available. Voices funds these trips and other outings that children wouldn’t be able to attend without some more support. Let kids be kids by allowing children in foster care go to theme parks, the movies and more!
Need #4: Education
In Pinellas and Pasco Counties, children in foster care change placements an average of once every 5 months, usually requiring a change of schools. With each move, children drop a letter grade. Nationwide, 65% experienced seven or more school changes as children. Fewer than half of children who were in foster care earn a high school diploma, and less than 3% earn a bachelor’s degree or higher. Voices is dedicated to providing children in foster care with the tools they need to succeed in school and graduate. By supporting the Fostering Education Access Project, you can help Voices remove barriers that prevent children and young adults in foster care from succeeding in school. To provide academic support for children in foster care, click the “Be A Voice” button, select the “Make This A Monthly Donation” box and let us know in the comments that you want to support Education.
Here’s How Voices Helps Kids Succeed In School:
Provide Tutoring for a Child
Children lose an average of one letter grade every time they move to another placement. Since our kids are moving about 2 times a year or more in our community, they need additional support and attention so they don’t get left behind. Voices’ special negotiated rates with tutors connect kids school board-approved tutors.
Provide School Supplies to Children in Foster Care
Children enter into foster care all year round, so Voices makes sure school supplies are always available in the Sheriff’s Office so children get what they need immediately and will not fall behind because they don’t have what they need to learn. Voices also orders special adaptive equipment and services to cover all other academic needs.
Help Young People in Foster Care Go to College
Less than 3% of children who were in foster care receive a college degree. They face an uphill battle at 18 when they have no consistent adult support network, stable place to stay, reliable healthcare or consistent access to food. Major expenses like laptops and school supplies can be a roadblock to progress for many students. Together, we can support these costs so young people don’t have to choose between their basic needs or pursuing their education. Help a young person succeed in college!
Need #5: Safe Travel
In Pinellas and Pasco Counties, the Sheriff’s Office Child Protection Investigations Units keep a variety of car seats in their vehicles at all times so they can transport children of all ages. When children can be placed safely with a protective grandparent, aunt or uncle, but they don’t have a car seat or stroller handy, Voices makes sure that investigators can immediately provide for these needs so that children can be safely transported by family members to doctor’s appointments, daycare and everywhere in between. Click the “Be A Voice” button, select the “Make This A Monthly Donation” box and let us know in the comments that you want to support Safe Travel.
Be A Voice for Safe Travel:
Provide Bikes for Children in Foster Care
Whether it’s for getting to school and work or for having fun and exercising, bikes are a huge benefit for children in foster care. Voices provides a sturdy bike, helmet and bike lock so that children can travel safely and with peace of mind. Help children ride bikes!
Provide Bus Passes for Young People in Foster Care
Young people who were in foster care are sometimes placed on the other side of the county from their community college or technical school, and access to reliable transportation often means the difference between success and failure. When cars break down or a young person needs temporary help with transportation to get on their feet, Voices makes sure they can get where they need to be.
Provide Plane Tickets for Children in Foster Care
Sometimes, investigators discover that children in foster care have protective relatives ready to take custody of them or even adopt them, but their family members are on the other side of the country. With your support, Voices can help children be placed with their family, no matter where they are!
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