Families First is excited to bring our high-impact programming to a new region.
During the early years of life, children learn and develop in the context of their relationships and experiences. That’s why we bring parents of young children together in their communities so they can strengthen their parenting knowledge, skills, and support systems
2022 expansion is focused on Hampden county, where we will set up a regional hub in Springfield, MA.
This location allows for proximity to Chicopee and Holyoke—two areas which could benefit from our services. It also opens up additional growth opportunities in Worcester, Pittsfield, Hartford, and more.
HAMPDEN COUNTY MEETS ALL OF OUR EXPANSION CRITERIA. KEY DECISION FACTORS INCLUDE:
Springfield and surrounding communities are home to many innovative early childhood programs, but few direct parenting services similar to what we provide.
Many potential partners exist, including Head Start, EduCare, and Square One, where we have preliminary connections.
There is a significant need for programming in Spanish (33% of Springfield residents speak Spanish at home), which we provide.
Testing and evaluating replication enables all community partners to participate in a roadmap for future growth. Together we can drive toward a national partnership model for parenting support and leadership.
Families First’s programs work to provide deeper family and community engagement programming for the benefit of children, parents, and early childhood systems.
Category: Marketing and Promotional Activities
Need: The Basics Boston needs local parent voices to help them reach new communities to raise awareness and enrollment in their free text message services.
Goal: The goal is to target parents in several key neighborhoods (Mattapan, Roxbury, and Dorchester) to increase enrollment in the text message service and increase awareness of the Basics principles.
Activities:
Deliverables:
Impact:
Category: Community Event, Resource Development, and Advocacy
Need: Although there are Family Engagement activities happening in the district, many parents may not know about it and what resources are available to them. So this Summit will bring together the departments offering the services, and the parents who are multi-lingual and new to the district so they can learn about it.
Goal: The goal is to create a Summit to bring together all the people and departments from the district involved in Family Engagement and invite newcomers to the Randolph district to learn about what is available. The CIP Fellows will work with Randolph Staff to brainstorm and create a successful and inclusive district-wide event!
Activities:
Deliverables:
Category: Community Groups, Advocacy, and Family Leadership Opportunities
Need: Somerville has various organizations working to engage and empower families within the public schools. These organizations tend to work independently of one another. In order to optimize family voice and impact, it is necessary for the groups to coalesce and work towards a collaborative vision and strategy towards city-wide community engagement.
Goal: The goal of the Somerville Family Engagement Impact Project is a collaborative vision of family engagement that will be in place as a foundation for city-wide family engagement planning in the 2023-24 school year.
Impact:
Category: Community Events, Needs Assessment, and Expanding Parent Leadership Opportunities
Need: Need to access parent perspectives in order to create more inclusive courses.
Goal: Continue to develop and execute strategies to enhance parent perspectives in the courses taught at Urban College.
Impact:
Category: Needs Assessment, Resource Development, and Community Events
Need: The world of child mental health and wellness is often overlooked and can be a difficult realm for parents and caregivers to navigate.
Goal: Our goal is to make resources supporting children’s social emotional wellness more easily accessible and available for all families served by Self Help Inc. CFCE and foster meaningful community connections through a variety of in person and virtual activities over the next six months.
Impact:
Category: Marketing and Promotional Activities , Needs Assessment, and Community Events, Groups and Services.
Need: Identify and implement at least three new strategies to engage community members from all seven coverage areas, with a special focus on the new towns. After executing these strategies, we hope to have at least one new regularly attending family from each of the seven towns that we serve.
Goal: Raise awareness of programming for families across all 7 towns it serves.
Deliverables:
Category: Marketing and Promotional Activities, Resource Development, Community Events, Groups, and Services, and Needs Assessment
Need: Developing a communication pathway for the Office of Early Childhood to get caregiver’s input and to share information and resources back out to Boston’s families.
Goal: To create a communication pathway for the OEC to to share information on resources and opportunities for caregivers with children ages 5 and under and get parent input back.
Impact:
Multilingual Brochures on the City of Boston website:
Category: Community Events, Groups, and Services, Fundraising, and Marketing and Promotional Activities
Need: According to the 2022 County health Rankings for the 14 counties ranked in Massachusetts, Berkshire (BE) is ranked among the least healthy counties in the states (lowest 0-25%). The local and most utilized park in Dalton, MA is inappropriate or inaccessible to children who are under the age of 6, as well as children with different abilities. Parents have reported that it is difficult to get to their children if there is a problem in the climbing equipment.
Goal: We would like to work towards having a Born Learning Trail Kit installed in Pinegrove Park. We would also like to add permanent posts for StoryWalks to be placed along the Born Learning trail.
Impact: This project will reach many children, families, camps, and early childhood programs throughout Central Berkshire Regional School District and Berkshire County. This playground is the most utilized in the Town of Dalton and Central Berkshire. The StoryWalk signs are permanent structures and will enhance and engage all that use it for years to come. The impact will be immediate, and we will look to install this in two other rural towns afterwards.
There was some media attention for this project, here are a couple of articles written in a local pages: