 | Integrated Family Support Initiative (IFSI)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Solano County’s IFSI program chosen as one of only two counties Nationwide to receive Counties Care for Kids award!!! Congratulations to all the IFSI collaborative partners!! Read the press release, download our IFSI PowerPoint Presentation in PDF format or view it online! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now in its seventh year, the Integrated Family Support Initiative (IFSI) is a public-private partnership that provides in-home family support services to isolated families with children ages 0-5 living in Solano County. IFSI, originally created by the Children’s Network and Child Haven, is now a multidisciplinary collaborative of more than 30 agencies, including the Children’s Network, eight Family Resource Centers (FRC's), Children’s Nurturing Project, Youth & Family Services, California Hispanic Commission on Drugs & Alcohol, Heather House, the Department of Health and Social Services and others. This public-private partnership has been invaluable in terms of jointly planning services for families, reducing duplication of effort, and sharing family information to provide the most appropriate, prevention-oriented assistance possible. From 2001-2007, IFSI provided 261,409 services to 9,577 families with 12,819 children, providing such services as helping families access community resources; strengthening parent/child relationships; assessing the developmental progress of infants and children; linking parents to child care and to resources for school-readiness; providing health screenings, and more. IFSI was modeled after the Answers Benefiting Children statewide pilot project sponsored by the Office of Child Abuse Prevention and the Governor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning in the late 1990s. It is a vital infrastructure that can support current and future State-required redesign efforts for Child Welfare Services. Most importantly, IFSI is already generating positive outcomes for overburdened families. An example of this is the impact that FRCs has had on families’ level of knowledge about available community resources. In order for young children to develop in a healthy manner, families need to be able to access resources and services. 83% of the neediest families served by FRC home visitors showed marked improvement in their knowledge of and ability to access available resources. Further, parents have used resources to improve their skills in raising their children. 100% of families in crisis who were served by FRC home visitors showed improvement in their ability to set effective expectations, rules and consequences for their children’s behavior. For further information, contact Rosemary Kennedy at rosie@childnet.org. IFSI Services include:
IFSI Partners
IFSI is funded by the First 5 Solano Children and Families Commission. Lead agencies for the effort are Children’s Network and Child Haven, Inc. |
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