Florida’s Circuit 12 Recognized with National Award

May 15, 2024 | Sarasota

During the recent CarePortal conference in Kansas City, Mo., Florida’s Circuit 12 (Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties) was recognized with the “2023 Community of the Year Award” for its successful implementation of the CarePortal platform.

CarePortal is an online platform that connects churches with the needs of vulnerable children and families through local child welfare agencies – in Circuit 12, one of those agencies is the lead community based care organization, Safe Children Coalition (SCC) – in a safe, organized and beneficial way. Bridge A Life is the CarePortal Implementing Partner in Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties.

Typical requests addressed through CarePortal are for beds, dressers and other furniture, formula, diapers, clothes, and food. In 2023, Bridge A Life reports that, through CarePortal, 1,210 children were served, made possible by 21 churches and 700-plus responders. In recognition of the value of this effort, during its 2023 SCC Conference, Safe Children Coalition honored CarePortal as its “Collaborative Partner of the Year.”

At SCC, the process of connecting needs with resources through CarePortal begins by uncovering needs, when a child or family seeks assistance from prevention and diversion team members. The case manager vets the need and then enters it into CarePortal, which alerts nearby churches and community members. At that point, churches and community members partner to ensure that the child and family are helped. According to the CarePortal website, more than half of the requests entered into CarePortal receive a response in fewer than 48 hours.

The pilot program began in our region thanks to a former SCC vice president, Kathleen Cowan, who started the conversation about bringing CarePortal to our community. In July of 2021, CarePortal was activated within SCC’s Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ERAT) – this team provides and coordinates services for families who are at high risk for entering the child welfare system. The goal of the ERAT team is to ensure children’s safety and well-being within the home, to help avoid the unnecessary removal of children.

The goal of all the partners involved is to keep kids in their homes; by filling urgent needs, CarePortal helps to do just that.

“We’re excited to partner with CarePortal, churches, and other agencies to provide the best care possible for children who are at risk of being removed from their homes. The churches’ immediate response to the emergency needs of our families – especially after Hurricane Ian – more than proved the impact they were making for children,” said SCC President and CEO Brena Slater. “We are grateful for the platform that CarePortal provides, which enables kind-hearted and generous volunteers in our community to support and help keep families together.”

“Bridge A Life has a strong heart for prevention, and we wanted to make sure we entered that space with excellence and accountability,” said Danny and Ann Marie Jones, co-founders and board members for Bridge A Life; Ann Marie is also a board member for SCC. “CarePortal has given us the tool we needed to connect front-line agencies with churches and businesses to meet the real-time needs of families, ultimately helping them stay together whenever possible. Removals are down and we know that CarePortal is a piece of the prevention puzzle.”

The roll-out here was so successful that the original Circuit 12 liaison, Courtney Ross – who led the CarePortal program here for the first three years – now works for CarePortal at the national level as the trainer for the Southeast Region, which includes Florida. SCC was the pilot program locally, and now there are now 17 additional agencies in Circuit 12 that use the service. Currently the State of Florida has partners with CarePortal in all 67 counties.

The benefits aren’t just limited to helping children and families in need, however: the contributions provided through CarePortal have helped to free up funds that allow Safe Children Coalition to hire additional ERAT team members and case managers, to serve even more families. The encouragement, assistance and joy provided by local churches and their members are priceless to SCC’s front-line workers, helping to brighten sometimes challenging days.

For more about SCC, visit sccfl.org.