The residents of Corpus Christi, Texas face the same struggles as other Americans during the pandemic. They’ve shifted the way they work, their children learn, and how they communicate with other people. Navigating the economic, family, and community impacts of COVID-19 is challenging, especially for families that lost their jobs or experienced health hardships. An organization helping these families is BCFS Health and Human Services, a nonprofit group that helps families through its Corpus Christi location. It’s part of a global organization that helps adults with disabilities, youth from foster care, low-income parents, families in crisis, minors separated from their families, orphaned children, and foster or adoptive families.
The local Corpus Christi office is led by Director Robin Soto who manages the support efforts for community members. These include planning, family management, and educational opportunities to help residents get through the pandemic. Under her guidance and through her local team the organization has provided personal assistance to many Corpus Christi families, helping them with education and career planning resources. They’ve also managed to adapt to virtual delivery of these services to maintain social distancing.
These efforts produced multiple successful outcomes, including the organization’s work with a young mother named Lena*. This young lady lost her job at the local school district at a time when she was raising one small child and expecting another. The organization provided her with a month’s rent payment and job search resources that helped her quickly find new employment. BCFS HHS also connected her with another organization that provided her with baby items, including a crib.
Another mother of four reached out to BCFS for assistance during the pandemic. She was desperate for help with her children’s behavior, which was worsened by the challenges of virtual learning and lockdown’s limitations. She selected some parenting classes that gave her strategies for managing her kids’ actions and reducing tensions throughout the household. In addition to the parenting classes, she also utilized the freely offered local store gift cards and some new board games which could help relieve some boredom.