- What are Family Resource Centers (FRCs) and how are they networked across the country?
- How do Family Resource Centers support prenatal-to-three healthy development, family strengthening, and child abuse prevention? What positive outcomes have they achieved for children and families?
- How can Family Resource Centers and Networks of Family Resource Centers advance your work?
The National Collaborative for Infants and Toddlers and the National Family Support Network invite you to uncover "America's Best Kept Secret," Family Resource Centers (FRCs). This session will provide a national overview, state and local examples from the Maryland Family Network, and exploration of FRCs’ role in relation to prenatal-to-three healthy development, family strengthening, child abuse prevention, and child welfare. Learn more and register here.
There are more than 3,000 FRCs in 31 states and the District of Columbia working with more than 2 million people annually. Yet because they have emerged organically without dedicated federal funding, they are often described as "America’s best kept secret."
FRCs are community or school-based welcoming hubs of support, services, and opportunities for families that:
• Utilize an approach that is multi-generational, strengths-based, and family-centered.
• Reflect and are responsive to community needs and interests
• Provide support at no or low cost for participants
• Build communities of peer support for families to develop social connections that reduce isolation and stress.
Family Support and Strengthening Networks consist of two or more Family Resource Centers or Family Strengthening organizations working together to ensure coordinated quality support for families. Each Network serves as the backbone entity to leverage and coordinate the collective impact of its members. They create opportunities for service providers to meet formally and informally, exchange information, make connections, develop relationships, build capacity, and address challenges that no one organization could on its own.
During the pandemic, when families have been more challenged than ever, FRCs and FRC Networks have been uniquely positioned to be of support. FRCs have significantly increased their existing core work of providing parenting support and access to resources to address two of the greatest challenges for which families have been seeking help.
As FRCs have rolled up their sleeves to help families even more, their dedicated frontline efforts have yielded new visibility and funding.
Recommended Participants:
National, state, and local policymakers, public departments, Children's Trust Fund staff, private funders, Family Support and Strengthening Network leaders and representatives, Family Support and Strengthening Program management staff, organizations, groups and coalitions focused on prenatal to 3-year-old supports and services for families and communities, and groups working on child abuse prevention at the local and state levels.
