The Shift: Voices of Prevention — A podcast by Prevent Child Abuse America

Ep. 6: Andrew Russo | PCA America 2023 National Conference Podcast

• Prevent Child Abuse America

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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the official broadcast of PCAA America's National Conference. I'm Nathan Fink, and I'll be your host for the next four days as we embark on this transformative journey and hear from experts in prevention, and together discover innovative family-focused policies, cutting-edge research programs, and practices that help drive the field toward upstream thinking so every child has the opportunity to grow up safe and nurtured. As Prevent Child Abuse America's first in-person meeting of state chapters and home visiting networks, policy and community partners, and other collaborators since 2019, the 2023 conference offers nearly 90 sessions, three keynote speakers, workshops, symposia, and presentations focusing on effective prevention strategies with nationally recognized experts and leaders. So tune in to hear from professionals, advocates, and innovators in child abuse and neglect prevention, because each day is an opportunity to build foundations for our future. Hello, and welcome to PCA America's National Conference Podcast. I'm thrilled to be joined by Andrew Russo, founder and director of the National Family Support Network, as well as presenter at the 2023 PCA America Together for Prevention Conference. Andrew, welcome to the show. Thank you. Glad to be here. So as a side note, we in New Hampshire owe you a great debt of gratitude. Our Family Resource Centers demonstrate their resilience every day. So thank you for all the work that you're doing to elevate them. And Family Resource Centers are often thought of as America's best kept secret. So give us a thumbnail sketch. What is a Family Resource Center and why is the work that they do so critical?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, first and foremost, uh family resource centers are welcoming hubs of support for families. And they provide supports and services and opportunities for families to make connections with each other. And these centers provide services at no cost or low cost for participants, and they're designed for everyone with the idea that raising children, being a spouse or partner, are two of the most difficult jobs we can have as adults. Two of the most difficult jobs we can have that we typically receive nothing in the way of support for. So that's where Family Resource Centers come in to help us succeed with these important roles in our society. So family resource centers therefore do not have stigma attached with them because they're for everyone. And are programs that people can feel comfortable accessing in their communities without judgment to access support and build relationships.

SPEAKER_01:

So family resource centers really have evolved over the years to be what they are today. What is it about their origins that makes them such an embedded part of the community?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think to look back at the history, the history of family resource centers in this country goes back to the turn of the last last century when immigrants were coming to this country in large numbers, primarily from Europe, and settlement houses sprang up in large metropolitan areas like Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco to help those new immigrants acclimate to life in this new country. So my own ancestors on both sides would have availed themselves of services and supports at settlement houses in Boston, my hometown. And they provided English as a second language classes and job skills training and information about navigating the new society and also opportunities for people to preserve their home cultures. And then the modern day incarnation of the settlement house framework is the family resource center. So there are literally settlement houses, such as in San Francisco, that are now family resource centers, continuing to serve the community in the exact same physical location, including some of those supports and services that are exactly the same as over a hundred years ago: English classes, job skills training. But now we would also see the emphasis on things we know support healthy families development. So that parenting support and uh access to resources around having healthy and successful families. So I think the in part the strength of family resource centers is they go back to a model that's over 100 years old and works. Um and because there's that strength there, they've continued to build and innovate and evolve over time. But the concept is still the same. The idea that you're supportive of communities in communities. Um, and the the really key piece is we talk about the programs being of, by, and for the communities they served. So parents, community members, caregivers are involved from the very beginning in developing a center in terms of informing what are the challenges, what are the opportunities in the neighborhood, what then would the center reflect in its programming to support that particular community. So we often say if you've seen one family resource center, you've seen one family resource center because they're developed in response to their individual communities. And then families are engaged in the programming, families are engaged in leadership in the program through the parent advisory committee that continues to guide the work and ensure that the program is accountable to the community and achieving its outcomes. So that deep groundedness in community is a key strength of family resource centers, and that flexibility to be responsive to different kinds of communities has also been part of their success. And the other key piece to mention is the focus on building supportive relationships. So there are a lot of supports and services for families out there, but I always try to explain to folks that going to a family resource center is totally different than going to the dentist office. You know, you go to the dentist's office and you go back six months later. I hope you don't have to go back any sooner than that. And, you know, you get your services and may you have pleasant interaction with the people there, but that's it. Going to a family resource center is a totally different experience because not only do you access supports and services, but you connect with other parents and caregivers. And family resource centers create the physical place for families to get to know each other to build that all-important protective factor of social connections. And social connections are that secret sauce of the strength of family resource centers that ensure that families have positive experiences in them, like connecting with other families, knowing they're not alone, uh, that there are other folks to form friendships with who then can help out in a pinch with childcare or making a recommendation about a good place to find a pediatric dentist and things like that, keeping keeping the dental theme going here. So that's a key part of, I would say all of those are key parts of what make family resource centers successful and how they've developed over the years because the framework itself is so flexible and so deeply grounded in the community.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, organizations like family resource centers that provide this support that looks like us, that feels like us, that is us, create strength. But certainly they need to be strengthened by the communities themselves. So, what are some of the challenges that a family resource center itself would face or is facing in this climate?

SPEAKER_00:

I think if you asked in general, people working at family resource centers, the challenges they face, the first thing they would point to is funding, because there is no dedicated federal funding for FRCs. So they're not like Head Start programs or after school programs or home visiting programs, all of which have dedicated federal funding, all of which have whole systems behind them organized that the programs roll out in across the different states. Family Resource Center world is totally different. The work has emerged organically as uh so many different states, counties, municipalities, towns have chosen to invest in these family resource centers when nobody's telling them that they have to. Uh, and that's wonderful. And it also creates such a patchwork of what the landscape looks like. Uh, that um what are the right funding levels for FRCs? And how do you determine what those should be? When you look at, again, the variety of services they provide and the the different landscapes that they're in, there's no one answer to that because costs of living are different from place to place. But overall, uh, we'd say as a field, family resource centers were under the radar to begin with, and then things such as wages and benefits and and such were really far down the list in terms of things that were even talked about, even amongst FRCs. Uh, if if they talked about funding, it was funding to support more work with the community. Only now are we seeing networks of FRCs and the national network itself turn to issues such as now how do we ensure that the workforce is well supported and compensated? Because we're only as good as our people. As simple as that. All the work is relational, it's all people-based work. So we need a strong workforce skilled in supporting those helping relationships with families, which means we need to pay attention to paying living wages that workers themselves are not struggling with their families in order to do this work with the community. So I think that's that's been one of the key neglected areas that is getting more attention now, uh, and and one that we plan to continue focusing attention on. Um other fields like like uh early care and education are so much farther ahead of us in terms of their advocacy, their strong voice, their making the connection with support for the staff and what difference that makes in terms of care for children, a family resource center world is is playing catch-up with that.

SPEAKER_01:

So, as the co-founder and director of the National Family Support Network, what then, given those challenges, are some of the opportunities that you're seeing to carry on these conversations?

SPEAKER_00:

I think there are a number of opportunities out there. The first one I would point to is the incredible, incredible job that FRCs did responding to families' challenges during the pandemic. And that was FRCs doing what they do best, which is ensuring that communities are supported. And even when everything else shut down, you could count on a family resource center in your community having its lights on, doors open, doing whatever they could to support the community even at the most challenging times in our country's recent history. And with that, what we saw was FRCs in a situation where all families needed support. All families needed resources. Family resource centers stepped up, rolled up their sleeves, redoubled, re-tripled, re-quadrupled their work to support the community. And what was different was it was noticed. And for the first time, family resource centers started to get on the radar in various states. And it was Alabama in May of 2020 that was the first state that stepped forward and said, hey, what these centers are doing is really impressive. And they had long had a network and they had long had centers, but they stepped up their financial support of them. They increased the funding for FRCs, recognizing that FRCs are really helpful to have around. And not just in times of crisis, but in general. And they were rapidly followed by states red and blue across the country. And the the ARPA funding helped with that in some situations, and also even without additional funding, uh, states and cities and counties uh dove deeper into their resources to support these centers. Um, so that alone created an incredible opportunity where we have seen an unprecedented influx of funding into FRCs uh that we've never seen before. We've never seen anything like that. And just within the past um three years, and that has continued unabated. Uh, there are more and more states investing in FRCs, more and more networks coming online, and that creates a great opportunity to further connect the work and ensure that all families will be supported. That our vision is that you wouldn't think twice about there being an FRC in your community, just like there should be a park and a library and a good school. They're just building blocks of healthy communities. So, with that opportunity, with so much attention on FRCs, which is new for us, we're not used to the the attention, as you mentioned, typically being under the radar, um, what do we do with that moment? And and what is it that we want to put forward as the things that that that governments and systems leaders can pay attention to as they're trying to uh support families for investing in family resource centers.

SPEAKER_01:

Andrew, thank you so much for the work you're doing. Please keep it up and thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you very much. And stay tuned for more interviews from the PCA America National Conference Podcast.