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A Family Resource Center was established earlier this year by this agency to meet some identified unmet needs in the community and to compliment and enrich services already being provided by this family focused private non-profit adoption agency. In working with families seeking to reunify with their children in foster care, our staff became aware of the few resources available to these adults for educational and training classes in such areas as parenting, domestic violence, problem solving skills, and anger management. At about the same time our staff was establishing our CyberFamilies program, which provides refurbished, donated computers to families raising K-12 children who cannot afford the still rather high costs of a reliable home pc with internet connectivity. Since many of these families which received computers were grandparents raising grandchildren. The staff became aware that many of these “parents” were computer illiterate. We also realized that a majority of foster parents are also unskilled in the basics of computer operation. 

As we began to think about these two problems the vision, of a center devoted to providing easily applicable knowledge targeted to meet these needs became clear. Therefore a computer lab open to the public, with volunteers teaching basic classes at various times through the week, supplemented by educational classes taught by professionals who volunteer their time was implemented. The agency also set up a library from which parents could borrow books dealing with various parenting issues.

The basic work on the Family Resource Center started in July of this year. Now we can report that a four (4)-station computer lab is operational, the library is being organized, and we have had our first training class.  Strengthening Your Marriage is currently being held and we have three volunteers ready to teach basic computer skills. The agency has recently purchased some books and training tapes to add to the agency’s resources, which will be available in the Family Resource Center. In recent weeks a local family has used the Family Resource Center for Internet connectivity, even though they have a home PC, in order to conserve their online time available at home. With two teenagers and a Mom in college this family, like many others today has learned how to wisely utilize their limited accessibility to manage their valuable time.

Although we have tried to promote the Family Resource Center through our agency’s monthly email newsletter, we are still looking at ways we can inform the general public of the availability of the Family Resource Center and its offerings. Currently we are looking into adding key social service agencies to our email list for our newsletter.