Children’s Institute offers support to Los Angeles undocumented community

Children’s Institute, an organization with an influential presence in Los Angeles, is helping undocumented families with helpful resources in response to President Donald Trump's current immigration policies.

Since Trump took office, his administration has remained committed to fulfilling its promises of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. According to  a recently  leaked internal document reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, federal law enforcement agents reportedly intend to “carry out a ‘large scale’ immigration enforcement action in the Los Angeles area before the end of February.”

A representative of the Children's Institute told CALÓ News that they have been hearing a lot from their community. “As of right now, the fear is definitely very prominent in South LA."

The organization is dedicated to offering resources and information to families, children, parents, and individuals benefiting from its programs and services. They communicate through social media and ensure that staff and teachers continually reassure children of their safety on school campuses and at centers. 

Additionally, Ahn shared that the staff at Children’s Institute is taking several steps to ensure the community feels safe and secure with knowing their rights training and how to interact with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if the organization does get approached by ICE agents.

 “We're working on getting all of our staff trained and knowledgeable on basically knowing our rights in order to protect those that we serve,” said the representative of the Children's Institute.

Aside from providing prenatal support, early childhood, health wellness and many more helpful programs, they are also offering community conversations and meetings in Watts and Echo Park to educate the undocumented community in knowing the differences between ICE agents, CBP, Border Patrol officers and LAPD and information that agents can't force individuals to share. 

Ahn also shared that they invite various community partners, organizations, legal experts and even LAPD to discuss rights, clarify what they can and can’t do and assure the community that LAPD will not participate in ICE raids.

“We're really doing this to help inform the community to know that they're safe here at Children's Institute sites, that we will not let ICE come through our doors and help them know that we are on their side and we won't be participating in any of the raids,” said the representative of the Children's Institute.

As a leader in trauma-informed care across L.A. County, Children’s Institute provides counseling services to children, adolescents, transition-aged youth and parents. Their evidence-based practices include parent-child interaction therapy, trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy and child-parent psychotherapy, among others. The Children's Institute aims to do whatever it takes to serve the whole family. 

Unfortunately, due to the ongoing fear within the community, the organization has witnessed a decline in the utilization of their mental health services. “We're seeing that clients are either opting out of their sessions, and because of the fear of coming in person, they'll either do telehealth with one of our therapists or they just won't; they'll cancel,” said the representative of the Children's Institute.

Now more than ever, the organization is seeing an uptick in the amount of requests, not just with food but with baby essentials for families. Ahn said individuals are more than welcomed to visit their warehouse and pick up items that they need.

To learn more about their programs and services, visit www.childrensinstitute.org/services/.

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