Family Resources is a community-based program conceived in response to changing social conditions that left families feeling isolated and with increasingly complex needs. Family Resources will help you find the resources and make the connections your family needs.
During the development of Family Resources, a task force comprised of family service providers, community members, and city staff worked together to respond to the societal changes which created new stresses and isolations but which coexist with the persistent need in individuals, families, and neighborhoods, for a sense of belonging, trust, and participation. Looking to our community to help define the problem and the solution, Family Resources conducted surveys and focus groups at the outset of its conception. These community inquiries revealed a desire for better and easier ways to know about and utilize the services available to meet their needs and a desire to know one another. New approaches were needed for providing resource information and creating connections to cultivate the strong bonds of community that contribute to family health and wellbeing.
Family Resources works to raise the level of resource awareness in the community, a first prerequisite to service utilization, as well as building community relationships across all community constituents. In this way, accessibility and utilization will be made easier and more comfortable, improving and equalizing the opportunities for all families to utilize the wealth of services and resources available to them. In the process of accomplishing this goal, those involved will be working together, exercising the spirit of community, and making a conscious effort to infuse that spirit while spreading resource information into the larger community.
Family Resources made the decision to reach out to families where they normally find themselves, creating a de-centralized system of information dissemination and family support. Rather than expect families to go out of their way to visit a geographic "center" to find service information and connections, Family Resources disseminates information and creates connections in neighborhoods, workplaces, childcare facilities, schools, faith centers, and other places where people meet throughout the community.
Family Resources is dedicated to creating and strengthening community across all constituent populations. Recognizing that all families have myriad common concerns and needs, Family Resources brings together a mixed community cohort in the Ambassador Development Program. Building connections and sharing information across the diversity of the community, Family Resources creates opportunities for understanding, appreciating and learning from one another.
To this end, Family Resources has designed five innovative approaches to increase knowledge about resources and ease of service utilization, and to strengthen community: a Website, Internet Access Sites, Desktop Kiosks of Information, an Ambassador Development Program, a Hub. An overall balance of "High-Tech" and "High-Touch" characterizes these approaches.
