Tila Guizar Powell, MSW 2015

During the course of my MSW internship with Butte County Children’s Services, I had the privilege to work toward bridging the gap between Children’s Services of Butte County and the Mexican Consulate of Sacramento. This gap existed because neither agency recognized the need or the ability to collaborate to benefit families and children in need. The primary need that I focused on in my work was the need experienced by children who are being detained by Children’s Services who are not citizens of the United States or children who’s parents are not citizens and are being deported. When parents are deported children are often left without family and can end up lingering in the foster care system.

            The passing of Senate Bill 1064, The Reuniting Immigrant Families Act, brought about the need for child welfare departments to work harder in finding families and doing everything possible to keep children form lingering in foster care. The passing of this Senate Bill led to my work in establishing an MOU (memorandum of understanding) between Butte County Children’s Services and the Mexican Consulate of Sacramento.  As part of this process I connected with other counties in California to see how they worked with the Mexican Consulate in order to address this need and fulfill the requirements of SB 1064; it was interesting to see how many counties did not have an MOU in place.

            The collaborative efforts between these two agencies assists immigrant or undocumented families in being able to reunify with their children in their countries of origin. In addition, it assists Child Welfare Departments in achieving the mandate of providing adequate due diligence in locating parents and family members to care for children who have been left with no caretakers due to a deportation. Having a memorandum of Understanding institutionalizes this process so that this can happen in a consistent way.

            I have to say that this has been a difficult bridge to gap and it has been challenging to navigate the administrative areas of this project. However, I have decided to not give up. Even though I have graduated and I am no longer in my internship this need persists and I will continue to do even more to fill it. After completing a Family Impact Analysis on Senate Bill 1064 for my Policy class and determining that there is still unmet need, I will see it through to the end. I hope that after the MOU has been approved by both agencies that a policy and procedure can be created at Butte County Children’s Services in order to help social workers feel confident and have the skills needed to work with undocumented/immigrant families. If even one family is served in a meaningful and positive way the difficulty and challenges are worth it. 

Tila Guizar Powell, MSW 2015 (Distributed Learning 3-year program & Title IV-E recipient)