La Cuna Overhalls Website

I wanted to say a huge THANKS to SDSVP for forwarding my name to SDSU’s Entrepreneurial Management Center. WOW, has Bernie and his team done an impressive job at very thoughtfully updating our website. Down to the little details, they really have done a complete overhaul so that it is far more helpful in allowing us to achieve our two critical goals that all other needs fall under at La Cuna--- finding parents and funding. His multidisciplinary team was totally on the ball and had very professional skills. We hustled, and we got the whole project done in 6 weeks, which took a lot of work, including some weekend work. They took the project incredibly seriously and came to the table with a lot of talent.

Any nonprofit that is chosen to work with them is incredibly fortunate.

Again, thank you!!!

Rachel Humphreys
Founder/Executive Director, La Cuna Inc.
http://www.lacuna.org/

Success for La Cuna

By Rachel Humphreys

As summer winds down and a change of seasons is in the air, change is happening within the homes of many La Cuna families right now as they become adoptive parents. By now La Cuna has placed 70 children in safe and loving homes. As of now, 11 have been adopted or are in process of being adopted by their La Cuna families. (Many more cases are still up in the air, and approximately 60% have been successfully reunified with rehabilitated family members.)

Although La Cuna tries to reunify our La Cuna children with biological or extended family whenever they can, they are also committed to permanency for each child, and their foster families are excited to adopt when reunification is not possible. They have incredibly heartwarming stories around their little adopted sweet peas and their loving La Cuna families. Below is one such example.

Little Arturo came to La Cuna on December 20, 2006 at the tender age of 11 days old. His parents were young teenagers themselves who are prone to violence and drug use. Cesar was born “pos tox,” with crystal meth in his system. For his first year in care, his wonder-parents, April and Ben Flores, tried very hard to help reunify him with his biological parents, and then when that could not happen, they tried to place him with a variety of extended family members. The latter were all ultimately unable to pass a background clearance check.

Along the way it became clear that Cesar needed a “forever home.” Meanwhile, along with his La Cuna parents, April and Ben, he was being equally adored by his La Cuna Grandmother, who lives with the Flores family. Cesar is now in process of being adopted by the Flores family.

“The level to which the Flores couple has remained calm and supportive of whatever’s best for Cesar has been truly incredible. They have been amazingly selfless in their quest to look out for the beautiful boy in their home.” Says Executive Director Rachel Humphreys.

Meanwhile Cesar has blossomed into a very healthy toddler! He not only meets all his developmental milestones, but he’s a wonderful, completely well-adjusted little man. He’s outgoing, sociable, and his favorite TV show is “Wow! Wow! Wubbzy.”

This story is yet another success story for La Cuna. La Cuna’s ability to intervene at a very early age has allowed two critically important things to happen to Cesar. One: He has known the luxury of one solid, terrifically loving family, as opposed to having multiple placements. Two: the cycle of violence and drugs that is self perpetuating among troubled teenagers most likely ends with Cesar.

Social Venture Partners has played an instrumental role in every important area of La Cuna’s operations: leveraging grant money; playing key roles in all our major events and fundraisers; developing infrastructure support through pro-bono advisors and technology support; brand-new, securing a state-of-the-art donated phone system; helping us implement our first donor database; developing our website and our branding identity; helping us outreach to find quality La Cuna families; and sponsoring various retreats for us such as board development, fundraising and strategic planning retreats. If that isn’t support, I don’t know what is!!

La Cuna

Dale Stein, Lead Partner

“As we enter our third year of partnership with San Diego Social Venture Partners, I feel incredibly blessed by the myriad of support we have received from SDSVP members in terms of executive mentoring, infrastructure support, emergency assistance to our families, legal advocacy, board development, strategic planning, fund-raising, community awareness-raising, marketing assistance, event planning, and much more. On behalf of our little ones: Thank you!!”
Rachel Humphreys, Founder and Executive Director

La Cuna, Spanish for “cradle,” was licensed in May of 2005 as San Diego’s first foster family agency dedicated specifically to both the birth-to-five year old population and the Latino community. The mission of La Cuna is to ensure that Latino foster infants and toddlers grow up safe, happy, and healthy, and to develop best practices that improve the lives of Latino children in foster care both locally and nationwide.

With the help of SDSVP, La Cuna developed a plan to drive their efforts and outcomes; utilized information technology resources to improve efficiency; and brought leadership and a working board together to support the mission within a larger system. SDSVP’s support allowed La Cuna’s social-service-oriented staff to focus attention in their areas of expertise effectively.

La Cuna is finding answers to some of foster care’s toughest issues. Every dollar spent on La Cuna children saves millions of dollars down the road, as they help through prevention and early intervention efforts.

The Art of La Cuna

From San Diego Magazine’s The Art of Giving
May 2008

A cradle is defined as a small bed for infants, but look further in the dictionary and you’ll find another definition: "the place where anything is nurtured during its early existence." Since 2003, San Diego nonprofit organization La Cuna, Spanish for cradle, has aimed to be this place of nurturing for the area’s most vulnerable population: foster children ages 5 and under.

"I founded La Cuna because my history has been working with older children; by the time older foster children are able to speak about their needs, they have almost no hope," explains Rachel Humphreys, founder and executive director of La Cuna. "The statistics are so grim: Eighty percent of those incarcerated are former foster children. We’re creating a whole cycle of broken people, and the heartfelt answer is to take care of children when they need your help—between 0 and 5 when it’s the most critical."

Adding that the majority of babies in foster care never find a stable home, Humphreys has made it her mission to change the statistics and reverse the downward spiral caused by infant and child neglect, abuse and abandonment. La Cuna serves as a foster-family agency training foster parents and focusing on a specific segment of the population: Latino babies.

"When we did a community-needs assessment, we focused on Latino children because just under one half of foster children in San Diego are Latino, come from monolingual Spanish-speaking homes and are placed with people who don’t speak their language," Humphreys continues. "These infants and toddlers have already been traumatized and then they’re ripped away from their mother tongue. It seemed like a real no-brainer to try to find more Spanish-speaking homes or culturally respectful homes for Latino children."

Since placing its first foster child in 2005, La Cuna has placed 65 children in foster homes and seen that 94 percent of them are staying in that home until they’re reunited with rehabilitated family members or adopted—a success that Humphreys is thrilled to share.

"We’re breaking the odds for these kids and increasing their likelihood of growing up healthy and happy," she says.

La Cuna relies on the community for support in many ways.

"I like to tell people that they can take home a baby, but if that’s too difficult, they can sponsor us instead," Humphreys adds.

Privately funded, La Cuna needs financial support to maintain its services. The organization also needs volunteers for office work as well as to arrange donation drives for diapers and other practical new items for babies. A career opportunity is also currently available for a social worker. No matter what capacity in which one chooses to work with La Cuna, Humphreys assures it will be a move worth making.

"It’s incredibly rewarding to work with this population," Humphreys concludes. "You can work magic on a child when they’re so young and malleable and open to the world. The window of time is so finite and we can do so much damage, but we can also do so much good. At this age they still have a fighting chance to grow up and go to Harvard and have a family, but they’re not going to be okay unless we pay attention to the fact that they’re in crisis. This is very critical work."

For more information, call 619-521-9900 or visit www.lacuna.org.

NOTE: La Cuna is currently a third year Investee of SDSVP