In the initial wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August 2005, New Orleans’ number of children in foster care rose while the number of homes available declined dramatically.

The range of social services for foster children and families working to stay out of foster care dwindled. The forced relocation of many children also made it difficult to maintain ties with relatives and friends.

“We had approximately upwards of 2,500 kids who were affected one way or another,” said Yvonne Davis, project manager for the hurricane class in the Louisiana Office of Community Services.

With forecasters predicting an above-average hurricane season this year, officials have had to work to prepare for the possibility of another disruptive storm as they continue to try to improve services for those already displaced.

Last year, there were nine storms, including two major hurricanes and three smaller ones, unlike 2005, which had 28 named storms, including 15 hurricanes. Of those 15, four hit the U.S., including Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast.

The Office of Community Services increased the number of recruiters in its regional offices to find more foster parents and take preventive measures to reduce the number of children placed in foster care.

“Since the hurricane, as part of the recovery, we established a special unit to work with the family who have been impacted,” Joseph Bruno, section administrator for foster care, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “We knew the situation was such and the needs were much greater, so we created a unit that could go above and beyond helping not only foster children, but the foster parents.”

On its Web site, Community Services provides answers to a list of frequently asked questions for foster parents and children whose lives were disrupted by Hurricane Katrina.

The list includes instructions on getting a foster child’s Medicaid card accepted in the state where the family has relocated, rescheduling court hearings and transferring legal custody of foster children to another state if the family does not plan on returning to Louisiana.

“We established that prior to last hurricane season,” Bruno said.

Bruno also said that staff would soon begin contacting foster and birth families to get cell phone numbers, addresses and any other pertinent information if they need to evacuate so that the agency can stay in contact with clients and help them contact one another, if necessary.

“We learned a whole lot from Katrina and Rita,” Bruno said. “The whole state has established evacuation plans for all of our residents, including some foster children in independent living and their birth families, to make sure we’re prepared. We appropriated special funding for these families and these kids.”

Davis, who heads the special unit for foster care clients in the hurricane corridor of greater New Orleans and the Lake Charles area, told BlackAmericaWeb.com her unit provided special assistance to displaced hurricane victims, including money to help pay rent, replace appliances and furniture, clothing for the children and educational and personal items.

“On a case-by-case basis, we looked at the individual needs of families, special therapy needed for the children who were traumatized as a result of the storm or services for special therapy for physical needs or additional tutoring,” Davis said. “We couldn’t replace everything,” but the money disbursed to victims was intended to help soften the devastating blow that the storms dealt to families.

“They were displaced and wanted come back and needed help doing that,” she said.

Davis said the overwhelming majority of foster children who were displaced have been accounted for and that a large number have returned to the New Orleans area.

“Katrina and Rita were really a learning experience for us because we never experienced anything like that in the agency,” Davis said. “We had a lot of staff people who were evacuated and displaced for a while. Considering the range of things they had to deal with, they did a pretty remarkable job of keeping track of all the children.

“We have a handle on all of them,” Davis said. “We are only down to 29 who are out of state, and we know where all of them are. Of the 29, 19 of those have been freed for adoption and are in various stages of the adoption process. All of the Rita victims returned back to the area. All of the displaced children from Katrina are accounted for. Seven (of the 29) have made alternative, permanent living arrangements outside of the area. The rest are in state.”