2018 – Family Resource Center Association

Moving On. One family’s success!

The Missy writing this story is very different than the Missy that first walked into the Family Resource Center years ago. Today, I am a proud military wife, strong mother to four beautiful children, and a recent college graduate with honors. If you would have told me 15 years ago that this is where my life would have led me, I wouldn’t have believe you, but I’m so glad I was wrong.

At the young age of 15, I became a mother to a beautiful baby boy. During this time in my life, I was making seriously bad choices and ended up becoming addicted to drugs. Everything around me was crumbling because of my addiction, and my son and I ended up in foster care. This experience led me to getting my life back on track and sober. After I regained my footing, I became involved with a man who was violently abusive throughout our relationship. I found myself once again turning to drugs to escape, but I knew that wasn’t the answer or any way to live my life for my child. I made the decision to go through a rehab program and move back in with my mother. She was now clean and sober too.

Living back with my mom and having that stable home environment, I was able to continue working with the Family Resource Center. I remember telling my home visitor everything that I had been through over the past few years, and all she said to me was “What can we help with?” It was so nice to not feel judged so I could move past my own past. My home visitor was able to help guide me and she provided resources like helping me find my own safe housing and parenting classes. She told me I could be successful. I didn’t believe her then, but I’ve come so far.

The Family Resource Center has been the most consistent support system for the past 15 years of my life. During these years, I’ve participated in Partners In Parenting Education Class, the toy van, play groups, and the safety and health program to name a few. I’ve also had home visits and participated in trainings so I can better understand my children and ways to give them the best of me as their mom.

Without the support of the Family Resource Center, I am not sure where I would be or if I would still have my son. I had hit rock bottom and they still helped me. Then, I was able to make goals for my family and they helped me reach my goals.

Today my husband and I own our home and have reliable vehicles. This year alone has been a huge year. I turned 30 and it’s humbling to think that I have been a mom for half my life! My husband and I are celebrating 10 years together! The best part is I did something that I never thought that I could be able to do as a teen mother; I graduated college with honors!

I am who I am today because of the support and encouragement of the Family Resource Center program! They have always seen what I could do, even when I couldn’t see it at first myself. Sometimes it’s hard to believe in yourself, but they believed in me. They have helped me learn about my children’s health and development which has helped me advocate for their needs as well.

I would love to just say thank you to everyone at the Family Resource Center! I don’t know where me and my family would be without them.

By Melissa K.

To find the Family Resource Center nearest you, go to our Member Center page for a complete map.

Family Support in Rural Colorado

Rural areas face the same challenges as other communities, but some of the answers can be hard to find. Challenges for families can include: housing, health coverage, available work, high rent vs. low pay, health provider availability, and direct services for individualized resources.

Family Resource Centers (FRCs) are at the heart of the solutions to challenges within the rural community. By offering programs to families that educate them with a two generation approach, FRCs are approaching their work to strengthen both parents and children, where they both can participate and learn together.

Rural communities struggle with a lack of public transportation and a population that can be very spread out. This makes it hard for families to access the resources and supports they need to thrive. There is also the stigma of needing services.

At the Morgan County Family Center (MCFC) in Fort Morgan, we offer an array of programs across the community geared towards meeting the needs of the whole family. We offer several programs that use the two-generation approach within family leadership, child development, health education, youth enrichment and parent education. Each program covers a different age range, benefiting all youth in one way or another, while also benefiting parents.

Families do not fit a “typical” mold. Families come from all levels of economic stability. Some families who are going through a challenging time may not have the knowledge of what resources are available. We ensure that our website is up to date with information about our offered programs, partner with 211, a national mobile app and phone number that can be used to find local resources, and by keeping a constant presence on Social Media. We also partner with local landlords and utility providers so that they can provide our information to families who they feel are experiencing a need.

Family development work is vital in reaching the families and individuals within each community. Advocates meet families on their level, discuss their personal goals and use wrap around services to strengthen the family as a whole by connecting them to local resources and providing support in their journey. Our advocates have also been trained in the Financial Health Institute curriculum to better serve families that need coaching in financial health.

Families who get connected to MCFC, meet with an advocate and through conversations and communication during these visits, it is determined what resources and supports advocates can provide. Advocates set goals with each family, then discuss each action step to reach those goals.

Along with family development work, FRCs collaborate with other community partners to provide additional services, funds through mini-grants, programs, classes and community events to raise awareness. These collaborations within the rural environment are critical to reaching a diverse population and to recruiting families into the programs available.

One partnership we work with is Fort Morgan Cultures United for Progress (FMCUP) to promote reaching our very diverse population through translating services. This helps us offer our programs in more than one language to effectively include as many cultures as we can.

Using evaluation, data, outcomes, and trends the FRCs are able to determine which programs are successful, which programs need more funding and what programs may be needed in the future. FRCs collect and analyze this data to deduce whether the provided resources are moving families in a positive direction on the Economic Self Reliance Scale*. In September one of our programs showed a 70{5174c02ae8af42f0163c0bde243aeca1ac9f4d91a19005bb7e698c1ed57806ea} successful movement for families on the ESR scale.

We are proud of the work we are doing in our community. If you think that MCFC could be a positive resource for you, then don’t hesitate to contact them:

411 Main Street, Suite 100
Fort Morgan, CO 80701
Phone: 970.867.9606
Fax: 970.867.9693
[email protected]

*Economic Self Reliance Scale: This report reviews data related to the domains related to economic self-sufficiency of the Colorado Family Support Assessment 2.0.

By Mary Gross and Jennifer Jaramillo – Morgan County Family Center

Strength of the Network

“A community is stronger than divided individuals ever could be.” –Seth Godin

Recently, a blogpost by Seth Godin caught our eyes here at FRCA. Seth Godin is an author and former business executive who works to inspire his readers to “level up” and interact in the world while making a difference. One of his most recent posts, “The magnetic generosity of the network effect” focused on the importance of community and The Network Effect. We must focus on sharing our ideas, purposes and work to create a larger and stronger impact. According to Godin, most of the time we adopt the scarcity model of pizza. This says that if we hardly have any pizza left, and share it, then we won’t have any remaining. We must remember that this is not the case with sharing work and ideas. If we share ideas, they will spread and grow, creating an even more powerful idea. This is the Network Effect.

At Family Resource Center Association, we work to create a collaborative community that is just as invested in our vision as we are. Our vision is a Colorado where every family is thriving and self-reliant, and we would not be able to take steps towards this vision if it wasn’t for the Network Effect. We recognize that a community is stronger than an individual, and we want to share our ideas in order to change the lives of many and make an impact.

Want to learn more about our impact? Check our latest Impact Report HERE or email Marie Mahan at [email protected].

By Amanda Weber & FRCA Staff

Challenges of Data

VIDEO HERE

Data collection and utilization can be a challenge for any organization. FRCA and our Members Centers are no different. We currently have 30 members in our network and every single one has unique needs when it comes to utilizing their data to the fullest. Each Member Center has differing strategic priorities to leverage and message their data to learn about and serve families. This is in part due to the unique needs of families in each community. Layered on the community needs, are reporting requirements in each of the funding sources our Member Centers receive. All of this variability can make managing our data collection, analysis and evaluation a difficult thing to do. Our systems have to be flexible enough to allow for Member Centers to collect and utilize what is unique about their own communities. In the same way, our data has to be structured enough that we have commonality in identifying not just what services families are accessing, but concretely identifying family progress as families grow alongside our Members themselves.

While we ask our Member Centers to use one database for our entire network, we know that many of our Member Centers are using three, four, or more individual databases to record different data due to funding requirements. Funders have, with genuinely helpful intentions, provided access to services/tools/databases to capture their specific data so that the data is collected consistently across grantees. It has probably been one of the only sustainable ways to collect that information neatly and consistently at scale. However, I have seen the fatigue for Member Center staff when they have to enter the same records in three places. I know enough to see it is not sustainable for the long term. Most Member Center staff work directly with families because they want to work with families, not because they want to enter data in six places afterwards. I’ve seen the same fatigue when data managers are faced with joining four or five data sources to get to what should and could be a simple answer.

While this is a significant challenge we face, there is cause for optimism. At FRCA we are taking on the challenge of data integration from our major collaborating partners to help alleviate that burden of duplicative data entry. We’re investing in and exploring integration projects that could potentially replicate at our Member Centers or even scale to cover the entire network and State. Most encouraging of all, we have the community of data nerds and the culture to make radical solutions work. Our network taps into the skills of economists, teachers, data managers, developers, scientists, and data-lovers who are so much more than a job title can convey. We have a mutual view, that understanding our data means understanding the people we serve and that makes for more effective decision-making. A network this wide and passionate about families, will always find a way to make it work. This includes the challenges of collecting and understanding information to best serve our Colorado communities, Member Centers and families. As we continue to improve our technical supports to Members, there’s plenty of room to grow. I am excited to be a part of this growth and innovation as we wrestle with the challenges of data collection, analysis and evaluation. This journey will take us all places we never expected or dreamed, as individuals, organizations, or as a network.

By Stuart Sims, Data Manager at Family Resource Center Association

FRCA Partners with Hemera and Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child “Frontiers of Innovation” Portfolio

FRCA has partnered with the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University’s “Frontiers of Innovation” (FOI) program, and is conducting research on how to grow and sustain a model Family Development program, with a long-term goal of determining how to best serve families on the path to self-reliance by uncovering how families’ needs, community services, and evaluation all align. FRCA is the only statewide Association in the nation working with Harvard’s researchers on how to grow and sustain a model Family Development program, with a long-term goal of improving the lives of children and families.

Frontiers of Innovation is the research and development platform at The Center on Developing Child at Harvard and aims to accelerate the development and adoption of science-based innovations that directly address community-identified unmet challenges of children and families in order to achieve breakthrough impact at scale. Launched in 2011, FOI employs a structured but flexible model that facilitates idea generation, development, implementation, testing and rapid-cycle iteration. This process is grounded in science and supported within a growing community of change agents who are committed to shared learning, cumulative knowledge, and transformative child outcomes at the population level.

“180,000 kids in Colorado are growing up at or below the federal poverty line,” said FRCA Executive Director Mark Kling. “FRCA is honored to work with the experts at Harvard on studying what engages families to utilize support services and how we can create lasting change in our communities by helping at-risk families become self-sufficient. The data we collect through the study will provide us with research on how to make the most impact for the most people.”

The first phase of this partnership focused on reviewing and understanding our data to learn more about what is working and why, as well as what is not working and why not. 13 FRCA Members participated in an orientation meeting that reviewed preliminary findings and invited them to submit applications to be a Cohort Site in the research study.

The second phase is focusing on developing, adopting and testing new, scalable strategies that can achieve significantly better outcomes for young children and families facing adversity, using three primary FOI components: (1) a continuous, bi-directional pipeline of scientific discoveries and hypotheses that will be translated for application in policy and practice: (2) intervention strategies that are designed, tested and refined through the IDEAS framework); and (3) engaging our learning community in shared learning, promoting early adoption of promising strategies, and testing pathways to impact at scale.

The FRCA FOI Rapid-Cycle Learning Cohort (#1) was established through a fair and extensive process in the Spring of 2017 and included three family resource centers across Colorado: Community Partnership Family Resource in Teller, Park, and El Paso counties; La Plata Family Centers Coalition (LPFCC) in rural La Plata and Archuleta counties, and The Pinon Project Family Resource Center in Montezuma and Dolores County. This cohort came to consensus on and then tested a standardized process for recruitment and motivational interviewing-informed goal setting for families newly enrolled in the Family Development Pathway. The cohort also tested the feasibility of adding some of FOI’s recommended measures to deepen our understanding of the Family Development Pathway. In January 2018, Mark Kling and FRCA Program Director, Teri Haymond, introduced FRCA’s Cohort 1 data collection and evaluation process at the Frontiers of Innovation Convening in Boston and discussed the hallmarks of supporting a statewide network of Family Resource Centers.

Lessons learned from FRCA’s FOI Cohort #1 included:

Perceptions that help is not needed, time commitment to engage in services, and lack of correct service matching to family needs were common reasons identified for why families opt out of deeper engagement in service delivery
A quarter of those families that opted into the study dropped out prior to completing, common reasons cited included moving out of the service area and not needing the help;
Motivational Interviewing strategies, a core component of FRCA’s model of family development service delivery, facilitated the development of trusted relationships with families; and
Family progress in self-sufficiency appeared unrelated to parent/caregivers’ level of executive functioning and past adverse childhood experiences, suggesting that services similarly help those with high and low levels of executive functioning and those who have and have not experienced multiple traumas during childhood.

The second cohort of sites, Delta Family Center (Delta) in rural western Colorado serving Delta County and Focus Points Family Resource Center, in metro Denver, will begin recruitment and initial data collection in September 2018. This cohort will test the impact of training additional staff in motivational interviewing (MI) in order to test the impact on family goal achievement of MI being deployed by a broader group of staff. The final conclusions of second cohort are expected in early 2019.

Families are at the center of this work, as articulated in this quote by Teri Haymond: “Families know their situation best and it’s our responsibility to make sure FRCs are equipped to respond to the needs of the people who walk through their doors. One of the most rewarding parts of our partnership with FOI is knowing that our research will help advance the field of family development and help resource centers build relationships with families that will keep them engaged and working toward their goals.”

FRCA has recognized that a broader Colorado FOI Learning Community will be beneficial to supporting this project’s overall goal. To that end, quarterly meetings of both the first and second cohort members will provide a chance to offer input into the project’s design, testing, and reflection phases as well as championing the project outcomes to broader membership.

“Working with Harvard and FOI has pushed FRCA to hold ourselves to the highest standard and ask hard questions about whether or not our work is impactful enough,” said Mark Kling. “This level of research encourages honesty, collaboration and taking risks to achieve great things for families in Colorado and beyond.”

By Teri Haymond, Program Director at Family Resource Center Association

Ongoing Professional Training and Mentoring Helps to Serve Families

Strengthening families is at the core of what we do and we accomplish that by strengthening our own skills and that of our Members. FRCA is proud to offer three different trainings to our Members and community partners to help family development workers build skills to work with families in a strengths-based and goal-oriented way. The trainings provide:

A holistic view of how a Family Resource Center operates.
Techniques on how to engage families and motivate change.
Comprehensive tools on how to track family progress and goals.

FRCA trains professionals across Colorado. Each training has a diverse representation from different agencies, allowing for fruitful discussion and peer learning, as well as a streamlined approach to working with families all over the state. If a family moves from one Family Resource Center to another, we know that they will get the same treatment and attention.

VIEW OUR UPCOMING TRAINING SCHEDULE

Standards of Quality for Family Strengthening and Support

FRCA adopted The Standards of Quality for Family Strengthening & Support in 2013. They are the first and only standards in the country to integrate and operationalize the Principles of Family Support Practice with the Strengthening Families Protective Factor Frameworks and its research-based evidence-informed Five Protective Factors. The vision is that their implementation will help ensure that families are supported and strengthened through quality practice. FRCA is the only organization in Colorado trained and authorized to conduct this training.

The Standards are designed to be used by all stakeholders–public departments, foundations, community-based organizations, and parents–across different kinds of Family Strengthening and Family Support programs as a tool for planning, providing, and assessing quality practice. The Standards create common language and expectations in the Family Support and Strengthening field across different kinds of programs, such as Family Resource Centers, home visiting programs, and child development programs.

Motivational Interviewing

Motivational Interviewing is a counseling technique used to help people identify their need for change and their readiness to make the change. This is a client-centered, self-directed approach and a great skill to have when working with families who are seeking support from an agency.

This training helps workers and supervisors identify where individuals fall in the Stages of Change, recognize change talk, and develop skills in using open-ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, and summarizing.

Colorado Family Support Assessment 2.0

Colorado Family Support Assessment 2.0 (CFSA 2.0) is the primary assessment tool used by the Family Resource Center Association’s network of family resource centers to assess family strengths and needs, and monitor progress towards family self-reliance and increased conditions that protect children against mistreatment. Non-FRCA agencies around the state and country have started to implement this tool into their assessments of families as well.

The CFSA 2.0 is comprised of three sections: Part A assesses 14 self-reliance and family stability domains including income, housing, transportation, food security, health coverage, etc. Part B assess the five factors that protect against child abuse and neglect. Part C identifies areas where families would like to make a change and how ready they are to make the change.

The most effective way to complete the CFSA 2.0 is by building rapport and trust with the families. In order to do so, FRCA believes developing Motivational Interviewing skills is the best way to engage families and assist them in identifying areas of which they would like to change.

Our goal is to have as many people in the family support field equipped with the training and resources to serve families in the best way possible. We are passionate about strengthening families to make true and lasting change in their lives. By equipping those who work with families each day, we are creating a culture of continuous quality and improvement for families.

If you are interested in attending a training, please take a look at our upcoming schedule.

By Anna Michaels, Project Manager at Family Resource Center Association.

Learning to Read and Write at Aurora Community Connection

AUGUST 13, 2018–Every so often, we like to post an uplifting story from one of our 29 Member Centers to bring hope and support to family development workers and caregivers in Colorado. This week, we’re in Aurora, a dense suburb east of downtown Denver. In the late 1970s and 80s, Aurora was the fastest growing municipality in the United States and today is the 54^th most populous city in the US. The racial makeup of the city is 61.1{5174c02ae8af42f0163c0bde243aeca1ac9f4d91a19005bb7e698c1ed57806ea} White, 15.7{5174c02ae8af42f0163c0bde243aeca1ac9f4d91a19005bb7e698c1ed57806ea} African American, 4.9{5174c02ae8af42f0163c0bde243aeca1ac9f4d91a19005bb7e698c1ed57806ea} Asian and 28.7{5174c02ae8af42f0163c0bde243aeca1ac9f4d91a19005bb7e698c1ed57806ea} Hispanic or Latino. Aurora also houses a sizeable refugee population, with about 30,000 Ethiopians and Eritreans living in the Denver-Aurora area. Because of this large and diverse population, there are a lot of needs within families and communities that the local government does not have the capacity to address. That’s where FRCA Member Aurora Community Connection (ACC) Family Resource Center comes in.

ACC was founded in 2007 in order to address a gap in services for families in north Aurora. ACC is open to all families, but emphasizes support for low-income families who are marginalized by language and culture. A core value that distinguishes ACC from other non-profits is a commitment to strategically leverage community resources through partnerships and engaging the talents of community residents. ACC staff have cultivated a strong degree of trust with local residents, which contributes to a particularly successful approach to community outreach. As a result, groups such as Aurora Public Schools, Aurora Mental Health, Cooking Matters and the City of Aurora turn to ACC to connect program resources to families in Aurora. A recent story of success within these programs center around two girls who were struggling with reading and writing at their age levels.

Illeana*, age five, began in the ACC tutoring program last summer without a firm grasp of letter recognition in either Spanish or English. Quiet and determined, Illeana worked closely with one of the center’s bilingual youth tutors and slowly mastered the letters of the alphabet through repeated and varied practice. She is now ready to start kindergarten at the expected level of learning for children her age.

Beatrice, age ten, began the tutoring program totally apathetic about reading and writing. She was clear about her reluctance to show any enthusiasm for program activities, and was easily distracted and off task. However, slowly and surely, thanks to her repeated pairing with a particularly engaging youth tutor, Beatrice began to take pleasure in the act of reading for its own sake. She realized there is a whole world of books in ACC’s program library she could connect with on a personal level. These connections were the spark that helped Beatrice to move from short picture books to increasingly complex chapter books. Beatrice comes from a difficult family situation, and told center staff that she felt very welcome and comfortable in the program. Towards the end, she even started coming for tutoring every single day!

Thanks to the wonderful family development workers at Aurora Community Connection, these two young girls are now thriving in their education and will feel the positive impacts of the family resource center for years to come. FRCA hopes that you will find inspiration in these positive stories and continue to work hard to change the trajectory for families around Colorado.

To learn more about Aurora Community Connection, visit their website at www.auroracommunityconnection.com.

If you would like to submit your own success story, please contact Erin Osovets at [email protected].

*names have been changed

Data is Really About People

August 6, 2018–In 1993, a fledging network of family resource centers emerged out of sheer will and passion to serve our communities where needs persisted and services lagged. The formal association, Family Resource Center Association was established a few years later in 1998. Since then, our network has increasingly used a “data-informed” approach to strengthen services through disciplined practice and decision making.

So here’s the thing. Data in nonprofits is really about people; about our compulsive drive to reveal the truth about our impact; about how we work with people to implement change.

Data-informed practice is people-informed practice.

Several years ago, our network started asking: How do we define our impact? We employed simple data tools to hone in on how many people our network touched with services, directly or indirectly, and into which Colorado communities we reached. We asked questions such as: How do we expand into underserved areas of the state? How can we serve more people in a deeper way? We increased our focus on offering a variety of evidenced-based services in more communities.

As we moved further into data-informed territory, the complexity of tools evolved. Since 2009 our network has used a relational database, Efforts to Outcomes (ETO), to collect participant-level data across the state. (Depending on who you ask, “ETO” might as well be a four-letter word. No one said data collection is easy!) Having a common database helps tell the story of communities across the state that need and value our services.

Every new revelation begs new questions, and we continued to implement more rigorous data practices. Now family development workers use a tool created by social science researchers called the Colorado Family Support Assessment 2.0. It takes into account 14 factors, including: employment and income, housing and food security, physical and mental health, and more. Is it perfect? Of course not. Will it look different five years from now? Maybe. (Gasp!) Does it encourage us to look at what we are doing well, and what we could do better? Absolutely.

Once we had a tool to measure “self-reliance,” the conversation shifted. How would we ensure our work with families helps them achieve progress in areas that are important to them? Family development workers now earn a certification in a technique pioneered by counselors called “Motivational Interviewing.” It turns out that helping people make change in their life requires a similar approach whether it involves giving up smoking or deciding to develop and adhere to a personal budget.

We’ve been offering this approach long enough that we have data to demonstrate that our family development model works. We know that people across the state come to our centers with a vulnerability in one or more of the 14 areas we assess. They also come with strengths and dreams.

Our data, as analyzed by social science researchers that we call “evaluators,” shows that people improve to a more stable place thanks to our strengths-based approach. Hence, here at Mountain Resource Center in Conifer, Colorado, which is also a Mile High United Way Center for Family Opportunity site, we can say that “an external evaluator found that family development participants experienced statistically significant growth in economic self-sufficiency domains.”

We owe it to ourselves, our families, and our supporters to understand the reach and depth of our services. For this, data-informed practice has been, and will continue to be, transformative. At the same time, data-informed practice places additional requirements on our staff whose case loads are full. It challenges our leaders to develop methods for analyzing data even though agencies are stretched thin. We appreciate that our supporters understand the demands of this high-quality, intensive, people-focused approach.

And remember: data isn’t just about numbers. Anecdotes are another type of data we collect. As one of our families recently told us: For most of us, this is enough to keep us striving, out of sheer will and passion, to better understand and meet our community’s needs.

For more information about Mountain Resource Center or the Family Resource Center closest to you, visit our Centers Page.

By Tracy Atlas (Mountain Resource Center)

It Takes a Village: Partnerships That Are Moving FRCA Forward

JULY 30, 2018–In a recent post, we told you about the collaborative efforts between FRCA and Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child Frontiers of Innovation initiative. In addition to this work with FOI, FRCA also partners with many great organizations and foundations across Colorado. As we continue to launch this blog, we’d like to introduce a few of the organizations and people that have been instrumental in the progress of family support and the Family Resource Center Association in the last 25 years. It’s because of their work and the amazing partnerships with our organization, that we can look ahead to future projects that will help families become self-reliant and thriving.

Colorado Department of Human Services, Office of Early Childhood – The Colo. Dept. of Human Services Office of Early Childhood, has been instrumental in supporting the Family Resource Center (FRC) program since day one. In addition to financial support of Family Support and Strengthening services, they continue to give statutory oversight for the FRC program in the state, and also direct certain family support programs like SafeCare, Community Response, and others, to our local community Family Resource Centers.

Parent Possible – Parent Possible has been a wonderful community partner and collaborator. Parent Possible brings the Parents as Teachers home visiting program and the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters home visiting program to our centers. These programs help young parents learn best practice parenting techniques. Parent Possible also helps FRCA design other complimentary programs for young parents.

Rose Community Foundation – Rose Community Foundation has been a champion for the Family Resource Centers and family support in Colorado for over 20 years. Their leadership and collaboration have been invaluable over the decades. They continue to be a supporter, thought partner and champion for Family Resource Centers and the Family Resource Center Association. We value their partnership and want to honor their leadership and support over the last 2 decades.

Thanks to these organizations and their support, FRCA is able to continue important work for families in Colorado.

We would be honored to have you join these organizations in supporting Family Strengthening in Colorado through FRCA. Learn how to donate here.

Life takes unexpected turns, but Family Resource Centers provide help and support

JULY 16, 2018 – In my twenties, I was blessed to marry my high-school best friend and longtime sweetheart, Ryan. We were an average couple, like many of you, both working on careers while building our life together. Life had its ups and downs, but it was good, we were a team. It was the little things in life that we both enjoyed, dinner with our families and attending church on Sundays.

But all of that changed in the summer of 2012 when unexpectedly, Ryan passed away in a motorcycle accident. My life changed instantly. Without him, I felt I had nothing. Within weeks with the loss of a second income, coupled with despair, I found myself homeless. Although loved ones tried to reach out to me, depression, addiction, grief and worst of all hopelessness had me in its grip. For three years I struggled. But then things got worse, I lost my only brother to suicide and then my grandad passed away shortly after.

It was around this time that I found out that I was 27 weeks pregnant. Which absolutely terrified me. There was no way I could bring a child into my mess. I was terrified for the life of my unborn child as well as the uncertainty of how I would provide for this little baby. But I made the decision that my child’s life would be a blessing and not a burden, regardless of what I needed to do to change.

I moved in with my mother until I got on my feet. I started eating well, stopped smoking, and maintained my sobriety. I also began going to the library and reading up on all things parenting. With support and encouragement from family and friends around me, on August 25th 2015, Robert Aurik came into the world at 8 lb. 15 oz. He was a perfectly healthy and beautiful son named after my father in law.

I found out about WIC from a friend. WIC was the first step in my transition to healthy parenting. I learned about breastfeeding and made a goal to nurse for the first year which helped me stay on track with my sobriety. I was also given the referral to Catholic Charities of Pueblo.

In the spring of 2016 I begin participating in their home visitation program, Parents As Teachers. I quickly found out there were many other programs that I could participate in. I also started working with a Family Development Worker in the Family Resource Center Program. Alex was able to help me assess my family’s needs, make goals and start focusing on what I could do immediately to change the future of my family. He also informed me of a job opening within Catholic Charities with the HIPPY team. Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters otherwise known as HIPPY. I applied and a few weeks later I got the exciting news that I was hired! This meant I could start to provide for Aurik on my own and continue to work on my goals.

The work I do with HIPPY has helped me develop my professional skills as well as encourage me personally. With firsthand knowledge of many of the Catholic Charities programs, I am able to inform the families I see about the great programs we have to offer. I truly love the work I do: networking, assisting families and serving the community.

In the spring of 2018, I am completing my second year as a HIPPY home visitor. I am now able to pay off the remaining balance of my student loans and I will have money to start my journey towards an associate’s or bachelor’s degree. I have also worked hard and will then be debt-free. This has allowed me to start saving for a down payment on a home! I’m building a life again for myself and my son.

Most recently I enrolled in the Family Leadership Training Institute program. Each FLTI participant gets the opportunity to work on a community project of their choosing. My project is HOPE, Homeless Outreach Providing Encouragement. The project goal is to empower and employ homeless individuals, connect them with community resources and services that are already in place, and beautify our city in the process.

My life has been very different after participating in programs and goal setting at the Family Resource Center and the other programs of Catholic Charities. Life is full of possibility once again. I have the skills necessary to take care of my son and myself. Additionally, I know where to turn if I need help. I am providing an environment that Aurik is thriving in. I have the respect of my family, coworkers, and people in my community and myself. My life now is filled with hope and happiness. My experiences have shaped me, but do not define me.

The work at Family Resource Centers is important! Connecting with families in their time of need is powerful and is life-changing. It is the little acts of kindness, the encouraging words, the information and resources you share with families that add up and leave our world a little better at the end of each day. Frederick Douglass said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults.”

– Tamra F.

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