Beginning in the Fall of 2020, amid a global pandemic, practitioners across Orange County joined forces with the University of California, Irvine (UCI) to form a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) to support housing insecure and foster youth. Over the course of two years, this group met regularly to develop a shared problem of practice and enact solutions to develop more cohesive systems of support. To build these systems, the group decided to host the county’s first “Resource and Connection Fair: for practitioners serving housing insecure and foster youth.” Hosted at UCI in 2022 with nearly 150 attendees, this event represents not just the hard work of practitioners and community leaders, but the abundance of care and dedication within the community itself.

Below we have compiled a list of resources and connections vetted by NIC partners that arose from our collaborative work. 

Organization	Resource Provided	How to contact
County of Orange Children and Family Services	Offers information on the transitional housing programs that are county contracted for former foster youth in Orange County as well as ways of getting involved with children and families in the foster care system.	(714) 704-8000 M-F 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
County of Orange, Health Care Agency, Office of Care Coordination	The Office of Care Coordination provides TAY specific resources and providers the County partners with, as well as overall County Homeless Services.	carecoordination@ochca.com
County of Orange Social Services Agency	County of Orange provides information regarding CalWORKs, CalFresh, Medi-Cal and General Relief regarding youth and foster youth.	(800) 281-9799 M-F 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.  Saturdays 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Covenant House California	Non-profit youth shelter that provides sanctuary and support for youth experiencing homelessness, ages 18-24.	(323) 461-3131 M-F 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Crittenton Services for Children and Families	Nationally accredited behavioral health and child welfare nonprofit with more than 50 years of experience serving the most vulnerable system-involved children, youth, and families.	(714) 680-9000 M-F 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Leading Purpose Inc.	Our organization provides housing and case management for young adults that are between the ages of 18 to 25 here in Orange County.	(949) 504-5619 Monday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-F 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Orange County Department of Education, Foster Youth Services Coordinating Program	Assisting with education-related matters for youth in foster care	(714) 835-4909 Monday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Orange County Social Services Agency Families and Communities Together	Families and Communities Together (FaCT) is a County of Orange Social Services Agency public-private program providing support services to children and families through community-based collaboratives operating family resource centers.	(714) 566-2878 M-F 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Orange County Workforce and Economic Development	Ready S.E.T. OC program provides employment and training services for In-school and Out-of-School youth 16-24.	La Habra (562) 383-4227   Anaheim (714) 765-4350   Santa Ana (714) 565-2600
Scholarship Prep	A school committed to creating community change by operating university-inspired, trauma-informed public schools for all students, especially those experiencing homelessness or those in the foster care system.	(714) 795-3498 Monday 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Western Youth Services’ Outreach & Engagement Program	This group serves the unserved, underserved, unseen, at-risk, and vulnerable populations. In addition to community-based outreach events, they provide workshops and services for those seeking lower-level of care or who do not meet medical necessity (i.e. short-term case management, short-term skills-based groups, short-term therapy). As long as individuals live in their service area (south county), they can provide services—no matter the age, citizenship status, or insurance status.	(888) 312-0406

Dr. Jodi Quas

Professor of Psychological Science and Nursing Science at the UCI Department of Psychological Science

Dr. Quas was an invited speaker at the Resource and Connection Fair. Click the play button to watch her presentation on recent research and recommendations for practitioners wanting to engage in trauma-informed practices.

Her research specializes in the effects of trauma and maltreatment on children, memory development, and children’s involvement in the legal system. More specifically, she studies strategies to improve children’s narrative productivity and accuracy, the effects of stress on children’s memory, emotional regulation and physiological reactivity as predictors of children’s coping with and memory for stressful events, jurors’ perceptions of child witnesses, and consequences of legal involvement on child witnesses and victims. You can contact Dr. Quas with questions or more information at jquas@uci.edu

Community Highlights

Networked Improvement Community Members

A special thank you to NIC members, it was through their ideas, sharing of their experiences, commitment to improvement, and community that this work was made possible. This work was also funded and made possible by the Spencer Foundation.