By Lisa Crouch
Children’s Disaster Services (CDS) deployed a Critical Response Childcare (CRC) team to Uvalde, Texas, on May 26 to work with the children directly affected by the school shooting that happened on Tuesday, May 24.
Six CRC-trained CDS volunteers have been in Uvalde for the past week and to date have had 157 child contacts during their time in the Family Assistance Center.
The team was honored to be present with the children on Sunday while President and Dr. Biden visited with families in the center, demonstrating first-hand what CDS does best. Due to the nature of the response, the ability to share photos and information is very protected, but the team is doing very meaningful work with the children.
The CDS CRC team plans to continue serving in Uvalde as long as there is a need in this community.
— Lisa Crouch is associate director of Children’s Disaster Services. Since 1980 CDS, a program of Brethren Disaster Ministries, has been meeting the needs of children by setting up child care centers in shelters and disaster assistance centers across the nation. Specially trained to respond to traumatized children, volunteers provide a calm, safe, and reassuring presence in the midst of the chaos created by tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and other disasters. Find out more at www.brethren.org/cds. More about CDS’s Critical Response Childcare team is at www.brethren.org/cds/crc.