Krizia\u00a0Ramirez Franklin spent her childhood in foster care, shuffling in and out of 50 homes in three states before aging out of the system in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
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She promised herself that her children would never experience what she did. Now a single mother with four children, one with special needs, she is doing her best to keep that promise. San Antonio\u2019s new crisis nursery has helped her.<\/p>\n
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Krizia Ramirez Franklin sits with her children, clockwise from top left, Kelvin Videau, 4, Maliyah Videau, 5, Melody Franklin, 8, and Marciano Franklin, 10, in the treehouse room at Respite Care of San Antonio, Friday. Franklin recently utilized the services of Respite Care’s Safety Nest Network.<\/p>\n
Alma E. Hernandez\/For the San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
A look at the new building at Respite Care of San Antonio, Friday. It is an expansion of the region\u2019s first crisis nursery as part of the Safety Nest Network.<\/p>\n
Alma E. Hernandez\/For the San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
Rebecca\u00a0Helterbrand provides a tour of the new building at Respite Care of San Antonio, Friday. The new building, a collaboration between Respite Care of San Antonio and a number of other nonprofits, is an expansion of the region\u2019s first crisis nursery as part of the Safety Nest Network.<\/p>\n
Alma E. Hernandez\/For the San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
Krizia Ramirez Franklin plays with her son Marciano Franklin, 10, in the playground at Respite Care of San Antonio, Friday. Respite Care’s Safety Nest Network recently helped Franklin navigate childcare during a medical procedure.<\/p>\n
Alma E. Hernandez\/For the San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
From left, Kelvin Videau, 4, and his sister Melody Franklin, 8, swing in the playground at Respite Care of San Antonio, Friday.<\/p>\n
Alma E. Hernandez\/For the San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
In March, Franklin, 35, underwent a double mastectomy to prevent breast cancer, but she underestimated her recovery. San Antonio\u2019s first crisis nursery was there to provide critical support.<\/p>\n
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About eight months ago, the Safety Nest Network, a coalition of local nonprofits, opened the crisis nursery in the center of the city, aiming to help families navigate challenges before they balloon into crises. The nursery has opened as a pilot without any funding from the city or county. But it will need that support for the long haul.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the crisis nursery, Franklin\u2019s children received short-term overnight childcare for about a week, staying in homes with licensed childcare professionals that already existed in Respite Care\u2019s programs. Respite Care is one of several nonprofit organizations within the Safety Nest Network.<\/p>\n
Parents can use the 24\/7 crisis nursery services at no cost without the risk of their children entering the foster care system. It provides safe, licensed emergency care for young children for a few hours or up to several days. It also offers wraparound services to connect parents to resources to prevent future crises.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sometimes a family simply needs emergency childcare so a parent can go to a job interview. A residential overnight stay is for the most critical situations.<\/p>\n
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Offering these preventive services to the community has been a concept discussed among various nonprofit service providers for some 25 years.<\/p>\n
Rebecca\u00a0Helterbrand, CEO of Respite Care, said that at some point the providers asked, \u201cWhy aren\u2019t we doing more for prevention?\u201d<\/p>\n
The need to support families in our community is clear. In\u00a0Bexar County, 22.3% of children are living in poverty, and 14% of households earned less than the federal poverty level. Poverty doesn\u2019t mean a family is unsafe or a child is endangered, but it does mean fewer resources to support parents and children.<\/p>\n
As for child safety, in\u00a0Bexar County last year there were 18,752 victims of child abuse and neglect investigations. Of the recent 13 child deaths, most were younger than 3. Children with disabilities are nearly four times more likely to experience abuse or neglect.<\/p>\n
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Franklin, who has a master\u2019s degree in social work, knows that once a child enters the system with Child Protective Services or foster care, that negative connotation can linger. She doesn\u2019t want that for any child.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In August 2024 the Express-News Editorial Board highlighted San Antonio\u2019s need for a crisis nursery. <\/a>Then, in February 2025, I called on the city of San Antonio <\/a>to support the nonprofit organizations in fulfilling this mission. Those efforts, however, have stalled pending the completion of a feasibility study.<\/p>\n Still, there is progress. The Safety Nest Network has proved its crisis nursery model is successful. It is deserving of city and county funding.<\/p>\n Recently, Bexar County commissioners unanimously approved more than $1.6 million to fund a crisis nursery.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Tuesday, during a grand opening of a newly remodeled home, the newest addition to the Safety Nest Network\u2019s places to offer overnight childcare, Franklin emphasized that the real safety net for her family has been the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n Texas Sen. Jos\u00e9 Men\u00e9ndez, who attended the grand opening, said the structure created by the Safety Nest Network will serve as a community and state\u00a0model.<\/p>\n Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, who also attended the grand opening, lauded the efforts of the Safety Nest Network but noted that a concerted effort at all levels of government is needed to improve lives for the long term. That would reduce the need for crisis prevention.\u00a0<\/p>\n On a recent afternoon, Franklin\u2019s children, Marciano, 10, Melody, 8, Maliyah, 5, and Kelvin \u201cKJ,\u201d, 4, were running around, laughing with their mother and enjoying an afternoon snack at a Respite Care playground, near where they spent the night in March.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cHaving access to this care gives me the ability to parent on my own terms,\u201d Franklin said. \u201cThis has been everything, not just statistically speaking, but for the emotional well-being of my kids. I couldn\u2019t imagine something interfering with everything I\u2019ve worked so hard for.\u201d<\/p>\n It was anything but a crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n melissa.murphy@express-news.net<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Krizia\u00a0Ramirez Franklin spent her childhood in foster care, shuffling in and out of 50 homes in three states…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-414296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}