FAMILIES FIRST ANNUAL UPDATE 2007 annual RePORt

Collaboration with Purpose
Families First and Children’s Hospital’s Young Parent’s Program
(YPP) have established a cooperative relationship in order to
serve inner city teen parents and their children. YPP, a specialty
award-winning clinic within Children’s Hospital Primary
Care Center, was launched in 1980 to provide comprehensive
medical care, mental health services, and advocacy to high risk,
inner city teen parents and their
young children. YPP serves approximately 250 teenage mothers,
75 young fathers, and 300 babies annually.
A collaboration between Families First and Children’s Hospital
based on the mission of YPP to work with teen parents and
their extended families was a natural fit. YPP through Children’s
Hospital applied for and received a 5 year federal grant to fund
“Project Connect”. This project brings together family-based
comprehensive medical treatment, parenting and life skills
groups, and home visiting interventions. YPP wrote Families
First into the grant for all five years.
With funding in place, the collaboration between Families
First and YPP has blossomed into two joint programming
initiatives. The goals of these two initiatives are to help young
parents become capable mothers and fathers who are part
of strong families, and to prepare young parents to become
productive and responsible adults. For its part, Families First
began providing an eight session Family Forum, utilizing our
seasoned Parenting Educators and curriculum geared toward
the concerns of young parents of children birth to 5 years old.
The second initiative joins the efforts of Families First’s Program
Department and YPP staff to create curriculum for an eight
week co-facilitated Father’s Group. The purpose of the group is
to create a safe space for young fathers to discuss and learn new
skills around various emotional, relational and societal factors
that impact their interpersonal relationships with their coparents
and children.
Both Families First and YPP receive great benefits through this
unique opportunity to work together. Children’s Hospital has an
opportunity to partner with a community organization, which
extends the range of services Children’s provides. It also gets
to share in the expertise that the experienced corps of Families
First parenting educators brings. The partnership also affords
Families First the wonderful opportunity to create programming
and content which is co-branded with Children’s Hospital and
to fulfill its mission by working with a population that deserves
and needs help. In the truest sense, this collaboration affords
both organizations valuable opportunities to promote nurturing
and healthy interactions through their work with families.
National Parenting Education Summit
In May of 2007, Families First, in collaboration with
Wheelock College, convened the first National Parenting
Education Summit (Charting the Progress and Promise of
Parenting Education), which was attended by 65 experts
from the parenting education field. Attendees came from
nine states and the United Kingdom. They represented
individual parenting educators, parenting support and service
organizations, and other experts working in inter-disciplinary
environments to strengthen family relationships. Over a
3 day period, participants discussed issues connected with
credentialing, licensing, curriculum development, program
design, funding, and advocacy.
The Summit provided Families First with tremendous
visibility, positioned us as leaders in the field, and attracted
the attention of the National Parenting Education Network
(NPEN), which has requested a similar conference on an
annual or biannual basis. By the conclusion of the Summit, it
was very clear that practitioners felt a strong need to convene
on a more regular basis and also to establish a network or
networks to more effectively communicate across what is a
very diverse and decentralized field.
Families First Executive Director, Crista Martinez, presented
an overview of our initial findings from the Summit at the
15th Annual A View From All Sides Conference, sponsored
by the Children’s Trust Fund of Massachusetts. A committee,
led by Families First board member Professor Lisa Fiore, is
currently meeting to formally synthesize the information
gained from the Summit and to prepare a summary report.
A huge thanks to the following individuals for making the
Summit possible:
Summit Committee
Linda Braun
Nina Dickerman
Gayle Dublin, Chair
Lisa Fiore
Anastasia Galanopoulos
Meryl Kessler
Anne Marcus
Marta Rosa
Stefi Rubin
A. Rae Simpson
Phyllis Sonnenschein
Lee Soto
Eleonora Villegas-Reimers,
Chair
Anne Bentley Waddoups
Leslie Zients-Pucker
Town Hall Panelists
Linda Braun
Harriet Heath
A. Rae Simpson
Mary Kay Strannik
Eleonora Villegas-Reimers,
Moderator
Thank You Wheelock College