WATTS : Care Streamlined for Foster Children
Children in the Los Angeles County foster care system will soon be assessed for both their medical and psychological needs through a new program recently approved by the County Board of Supervisors.
The supervisors voted Tuesday to give the county Department of Children’s Services $1.2 million to open a Multidisciplinary Assessment and Service Hub that will be run out of the Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital/Drew Medical Center beginning in February.
The department is renovating a trailer next to the medical center where the children will be seen by doctors, counselors and other workers.
“By combining the health and social services resources into one regional hub, the county can dramatically improve the critical medical needs of this growing number of kids in the foster care system,” said Peter Digre, director of the children’s services department.
The unit is part of the children’s services department’s new Protective Child Health System program.
It provides regular medical services and psychological care to about 1,375 children per year in the foster care system from areas that include Compton, Carson, Lynwood, Watts, Florence-Firestone and parts of South-Central.
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