Casa Pacifica Gives Quality Care

* Not to dismiss any problems at Casa Pacifica, but I doubt there is a high school principal in this county who is not forced to deal with similar incidents throughout the school year.

Teenage drug use, consensual sexual activity, dogs on campus, children walking off campus, children threatening staff--these don’t sound unfamiliar.

As I understand things, school principals can expel out-of-control or dangerous students, but Casa Pacifica cannot.

I’m not calling for less scrutiny, but I think that if we held the same microscope over a typical high school campus, we would find many of the same situations that have occurred at Casa Pacifica. This is less an indication of the quality of care being provided at Casa Pacifica than the quality of children our society is producing.

ARLENE WEED

Camarillo

* I have been a volunteer at Casa Pacifica since September and while there is always room for improvement in any public service organization, it is my experience that Casa Pacifica fills an important need in the community and does it well.

As a volunteer in a professional capacity (I am a marriage, family and child counselor), I came to Casa Pacifica hoping to put my training in child abuse to work. Casa Pacifica has a “no rejections, no ejections” policy which makes it the catch-all for all of the most difficult children in the county--those who have been “in and through the system” many times; some longer in the custody of the courts than of any single parenting figure. These children have been neglected, rejected, used and abused by parents and other relatives. They have been shuttled from foster home to foster home, deemed “too disruptive” or “uncooperative” or “too dangerous” by caretakers.

Working with this tremendously difficult population is a staff of trained child-care workers. They have good, solid child-care training, and Casa Pacific requires mandatory courses in crisis prevention negotiation and safety. I work with the staff, training them on what to expect from traumatized children and how to approach issues of affection and intimacy with children who have attachment disorders or who have been molested. I am always gratified at the interest and eagerness of these men and women to learn more and become more therapeutically care-taking.

Everyone works hard to keep these children from harm, from hopelessness and the conviction that no one cares. Everyone works for the good of the child. Everyone cares.

WENDY S. BROWN

Westlake Village