API Family Services Group Program Faces Steep Budget Cuts
June 20, 2008
Asian Perinatal Advocates program is sole target of 20 percent cuts
SAN FRANCISCO — In two weeks, Asian Perinatal Advocates Family Support Services will know whether it will be able to continue providing child abuse prevention and case management services to the API immigrant families in San Francisco. The city’s Human Services Agency is proposing to cut the group’s budget by 20 percent, or $205,000.
Despite the fact that Asian Perinatal Advocates has been considered the best performing family resource center over the past 10 years, it is the only such center in the city to now face cuts from the Human Services Agency.
The Human Services Agency’s reasoning for cutting the Asian nonprofit’s budget, according to Asian Perinatal Advocates Executive Director Mai-Mai Q. Ho, lies in that, first, only 9 percent of foster care children are API and, second, that Asian Perinatal Advocates already receives the largest portion of funding from the agency. The agency did not return calls for comment.
Ho said it was erroneous for the agency to assume that, because the number of API foster children is low, Asian Perinatal Advocates has a lesser need for funding. “It is a bad argument to say that the agency will receive help only if there is a high number of foster care kids,” said Ho, predicting that, should the budget cuts go through, there will be an increase in API children in foster care and juvenile halls.
Chester Palesoo, network coordinator of the Asian Pacific Islander Family Resource Network, called the budget cuts toward Asian Perinatal Advocates “an act of social injustice.”
“It is a prejudicial approach that is unnecessary,” Palesoo said.
Indeed, the saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is what Asian Perinatal Advocates lives by. Through case management, counseling, in-home visitations and parenting classes, the program has been effective in lowering the number of API children in foster care and domestic violence rates.
Perhaps Asian Perinatal Advocates has been too successful. For example, although the group is contracted to provide information and referral services to 450 families and drop-in child care for 200 families, they actually provide information and referrals to 1,934 families and drop-in child care to 7,090 families.
Parents praise the group’s work for helping them adjust to life in America and become better parents. The group’s programs help parents and children understand the cultural norms and values of both their native country and the United States.
“If the network is not able to provide these services anymore, it will be very bad for the community,” said Visie Millares, case manager at South of Market Child Care Center, an agency that partners with Asian Perinatal Advocates.
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