The Sunnyvale Community Action Team, formed in 2001 as part of the Family to Family initiative, celebrated its fourth anniversary on May 17.

"When they first started, I didn't think the team would become as successful as they've been," said team member Nancy Tivol, executive director of Sunnyvale Community Services.

The group's primary goal is to have enough of a support network that children placed in foster homes can be placed in or near their home community. The team is trying to eradicate the old occurrence of a social worker and police officer coming to take children away from friends and family.

In May 2001, the Sunnyvale Community Action Team was born to serve the Family to Family goals. Co-chairwoman Lisle Cohen--a Santa Clara County social worker--said the team's primary goal was to transform the foster care process from a harrowing, scary experience to a productive, secure one.

"It's already traumatizing for a child to not be with their family, so the benefit of the network is that they don't lose connections with friends or their faith or schools," Cohen said.

To accomplish that, the action team brings together local and county groups to provide as much input and as many options to foster families as possible. The members of the team include representatives from Sunnyvale Community Services, the Columbia Neighborhood Center, Social Advocates for Youth, the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, the Support Network for Battered Women and other groups. There are also local foster parents and other concerned residents on the team.

This focus began in 1992 when the Annie E. Casey Foundation established the Family to Family reform initiative to overhaul the child welfare system in the United States.

"Rather than social workers making decision on families on our own, we realized we really needed to work with the entire community," Cohen said. "If children do need to be removed from their homes, we want that to be a decision made by members of our community team."

Tivol said the involvement of community services typically revolves around financial support for foster parents. In the past, foster parents went to community services when medical costs for foster children made paying rent difficult.

In that way, the network of contacts helps support the children by giving them food, medical care and shelter and helps the foster parents by making care financially feasible.

The most important resource the team has focused on is foster homes in Sunnyvale. Four years ago, there were eight licensed foster homes in Sunnyvale. Today, there are 20, which gives children who require placement a better chance to stay within their community.

In the hierarchy of homes, Cohen said social workers first look to family members when removing children from homes where there is trouble. They then look to homes within the child's home ZIP code. Before the team began working, Cohen said it was not uncommon for children to be placed in other counties because of a shortage of homes.

"The whole idea here is to keep the kids in the area, to provide as little disruption as possible and to do what's best for the whole community," Tivol said.