photo credit: Courtesy of www.vomcf.org
The Valley of the Moon Children’s Foundation
is a private, nonprofit organization.

A three-year pilot program offering residential therapy for foster youth has been unanimously greenlit by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. The program will be the first of its kind in the state and it's set to begin accepting kids next summer.

A Petaluma-based foster care facility will be expanding its services for Sonoma County foster youth, looking to fill a gap in accessible in-patient therapy. 

“We're going to be the only county in the state of California that's operating both a residential shelter program and a residential therapeutic program, so that's pretty exciting and innovative of Sonoma County,” said Briana Downey, section manager at Valley of the Moon, a nonprofit that runs Sonoma County’s only 24-hour emergency shelter for foster youth. 

She said while Valley of the Moon is already a  rare and precious community resource, some children need more intensive and immersive care, leaving them in bureaucratic limbo 

“Capacity for those programs is really low across not only Sonoma County but the state of California..If there's no opening, those young people just stay at our onsite shelter,” Downey. “And so we have around four to six young people at any given time who need to have residential therapy, and they linger for months.” 

The pilot program is expected to cost roughly $27 million dollars over the course of three years, It’s designed to keep foster children from Sonoma County within their community. 

“Our hope is that a young person in our program doesn't cycle back to us over and over again, that what they learned by being in their local communities, still connecting with their families, still connecting with their friends, still connecting with their school is supportive, so that they can be successful, because right now you have young people all across the state who are away from their friends away from their family, away from the community that they know and they're trying to heal in isolation,” Downey said.

With a proposed start date of July 2024, the pilot program seeks to expand on Valley of the Moon’s current services. The nonprofit will continue running its current emergency shelter which accommodates up to 42 youths and offers anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes of therapy a week. 

The new residential program, the Short-Term Residential Therapeutic Program, referred to  as “STRTP,” will have 29 full-time staff members, 16 beds, and offer more intensive therapy.

“The STRTP will have a minimum of 24 hours of therapy a week for everyone who's there,” Downey said. “So the proportion is significantly different. We want to provide a program where young people have that space to heal, gain those skills, and then slowly transition them back into a family setting.”

Downey said if all goes well they hope to eventually transition the pilot into a permanent program. 

Reporting in Petaluma, I’m Tash Kimmell.

The Valley of the Moon Children’s Foundation
is a private, non-profit organization