A Van Makes Life A Little Bit Easier for Lander Eastern Shoshone Youth

All Lander children who are also members of the Eastern Shoshone tribe and who are involved with the child welfare system are under the care of the tribal Department of Family Services, not the Lander DFS. The goal for these children is to reunite them with family or to find a kinship placement, but it can take time—30 to 60 days—to complete background checks and find an appropriate family or kinship placement. During that time, the children still need to get to school, medical appointments, family visitations, therapy appointments, etc., but the Lander Eastern Shoshone children being assisted by the Department of Family Services do not have transportation to get them to school, doctors appointments, and family visits. So the founders of the Eastern Shoshone Children’s Lodge—a group home on reservation land where children can stay while the details of their placements are being worked out—came up with an idea: Purchase a van to transport Lander Eastern Shoshone children to necessary services and activities while they are involved with DFS. LOR’s funding helped secure a second-hand vehicle that should be able to help support the transport of as many as 300 children a year for at least 10 years.