When a household’s world falls aside, Harmony nursery takes care of their children

Just about each waking second of every single day, Enis Martinez tends to the wants of her 5 kids, together with a 4-year-old son who’s on the autism spectrum and twin 23-month-old daughters.

Residing in a two-bedroom Harmony residence, Martinez will get her kids up within the morning, feeds them and ferries her two older kids, 8 and 11, to and from faculty. Whereas 4-year-old Jayden spends a pair hours every day at a particular program for youngsters with autism, Martinez nonetheless has Hannah and Alanah. The 2 toddlers always look to her for consideration or in the event that they want consolation once they’re pissed off or drained.

“They’re awake all day long, don’t take naps and only sleep I’m driving them in the car,” Martinez mentioned, describing the plight of many stay-at-home dad and mom who don’t get nap time breaks.

Martinez mentioned she doesn’t get a lot assist from her estranged husband, whom she’s divorcing on account of his ingesting. She additionally doesn’t have household close by who might help. Which means her days could be very, very lengthy, with few alternatives to be alone or to only sit along with her personal ideas. It’s no marvel, then, that Martinez appears ahead to the break she will get a number of hours every week by leaving her kids on the Bay Space Disaster Nursery.

Situated in Harmony, the nursery has change into a useful service for fogeys, whose worlds have fallen aside or who’re overwhelmed, harassed in and out want of a secure, nurturing place to depart their kids, whether or not for a couple of hours per week or for longer durations of time. The nursery is a free, 20-bed residential shelter for younger kids, ages new child to five years previous, serving about 250 kids a yr. It will probably deal with kids for as much as 30 days on an emergency foundation, and is open 24 hours a day, 12 months a yr.

Mother and father carry their kids to the nursery for all types of causes, together with homelessness, job loss or psychological well being or medical emergencies, mentioned government director Tara Legaspi.

“It’s every single type of crisis that you can ever think of, right?” Legaspi mentioned. “But basically the parent can’t take care of the child and has nobody else to go to.”

The nursery has helped households who’ve abruptly misplaced their houses in fires, or when dad and mom have to stick with a critically ailing baby within the hospital. Some 96% of the dad and mom are single moms, a few of whom are attempting to depart abusive houses. The nursery additionally has taken care of kids whose moms have to enter the hospital to offer delivery.

For the reason that nursery opened in 1981, it has cared for some 30,000 infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers. These kids come from everywhere in the Bay Space and even from the Central Valley as a result of it’s the solely disaster nursery within the area and considered one of solely 4 in California.

Whereas on the nursery, the youngsters keep in a home-like constructing that options massive, light-filled playrooms stuffed with toys, books and video games for play and for studying. The youngsters may also run, climb, dig in sand or trip tricycles round a big outside playground. For nap time or at night time, they will settle into cribs or beds in rooms adorned with colourful murals, depicting a forest scene, an underwater world, together with rainbows, pleasant animals and a goofy octopus.

As Legaspi explains, the nursery’s mission entails a lot extra than simply providing a spot for fogeys to depart their kids. Its overriding goal is to forestall baby abuse and neglect by giving dad and mom the time and psychological house to work by means of a disaster. On a sensible degree, dad and mom want their kids taken care of whereas they go to job interviews, court docket dates, medical appointment or courses. The nursery additionally supplies case administration that hyperlinks households to important help providers, together with housing, well being care, substance abuse applications, authorized help, job coaching and backed childcare applications.

“We work to mitigate the crisis and then send the child back to a home that’s more stable,” Legaspi mentioned.

Via the East Bay Instances’ annual Share the Spirit marketing campaign, which seeks to lift cash for probably the most weak in our communities, the nursery is hoping to lift $10,000 to supply 250 hours of childcare and emergency shelter providers.

With the assistance of the nursery, Martinez will get time every week to benefit from the freedom of going to the grocery retailer alone, and he or she’s begun to take walks and is considering of going to the fitness center. She discovered her approach to the nursery in March as a result of she had seasonal allergic reactions that had change into insufferable and wanted childcare so she may get to docs’ visits, mentioned household useful resource navigator Laura Lopez. Like many dad and mom who come to the nursery, Martinez started to open up about different points – the stress from her divorce and the way she was beginning to really feel depressed and hopeless.

One other concern was Jayden, who had been recognized with autism. Martinez’s case administration plan included serving to her to verify he completed a behavioral remedy program in order that he may begin a particular schooling preschool provided by the Mt. Diablo Unified Faculty District. Jayden’s state of affairs highlights one other focus for nursery employees: monitoring kids for indicators of trauma or issue in reaching developmental milestones, then serving to dad and mom work with native companies and faculty districts to enroll them in particular applications if wanted.