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Mission

To support the concept of nurturing through providing training and technical assistance in the Nurturing Parenting Programs® in Georgia and to develop, consult, and train other related programs which build nurturing parenting skills in families thereby, preventing and treating child abuse and neglect and substance abuse.

Vision

All families will have access to quality nurturing parenting education and family services to enhance their quality of life.

Overall Goal

Children - growing in a nurturing environment with parents active and confident in their role as their first and most important teacher - are free of child abuse and neglect and substance abuse; allowing them to be ready to learn and succeed in school and other educational environments.

Approach

The Family Nurturing Center of Georgia (FNC-GA) is one center within a nationwide network of resource centers supporting the concept of nurturing. FNC-GA’s “Nurturing Georgia’s Families” Project, which utilizes the Nurturing Parenting Programs® (NPP) works to prevent the cited problem of child abuse and neglect and substance abuse via in-home visitation and group-based programming. This effort helps to strengthen family bonds, teach age-specific parenting skills that help change behaviors/attitudes and decrease the risk factors associated with family dysfunction and dissolution. NPP have been extensively field tested and shown to be successful in the prevention of child abuse and neglect and substance abuse.

The Nurturing Parenting Programs® are family-based and focus on increasing nurturing parenting skills. These programs include a variety of activities, which work to build empathy, love and compassion mixing with discipline to form healthy parent-child bonds. Families may take this program in their homes or with a group of other parents. Some of the NPP’s available are for:

• African American Families
• Foster & Adoptive Families
• Spanish Speaking Families
• Christian Families
• Prenatal Families
• Teenage Parents and their Families

• Parents with infants, toddlers or preschoolers
• Parents with children entering kindergarten
• Parents with school-age children, 5-11 years
• Parents & their Adolescents
• Parents with special learning needs & their kids
• Families in substance abuse and recovery
• Nurturing Skills, in general

The Family Nurturing Center of Georgia provides training and technical assistance in these and other programs.

Training

Various training workshops and/or retreats related to child abuse and neglect prevention are available for professionals, para-professionals & interested community members. Some of these trainings are listed below:

• Nurturing Parenting Program® Facilitator
• Nurturing God’s Way Parenting Program for Christian Families® Facilitator
• Basic Home Visitation Skills
• Nurturing Touch Workshops
• Child Abuse Awareness Workshops
• Parenting Retreats

Technical Assistance

A large part of the historic success of this project has been effective program specific technical assistance. Recognized National Trainer/Consultants and other project staff provide interested parties and contracting agencies with limited assistance free of charge when presenting the Nurturing Parenting Programs®.

History

The Family Nurturing Center of Georgia (FNC-GA) was formed in 1997 to assist with the management of a 16 county regional project entitled “Nurturing Georgia’s Families”. The Family Nurturing Center, International located in Asheville, NC began contracting with the State of Georgia to provide training, technical assistance, program materials and stipends to support local NPP’s within the northwest corner of the state. FNC and FNC-GA worked hand in hand to develop local program providers in each of those counties. The FNC-GA was then incorporated in 1999 as a private, not-for-profit entity, eventually assumed the contract with the State of Georgia, and has been fulfilling those obligations. Since 1997, the “Nurturing Georgia’s Families” Project has expanded its territory to 74 counties and is currently the highest funded prevention contractor for the State of Georgia.

Outcomes

During FY 06, FNC-GA provided Nurturing Parenting Programs® to 846 families expecting children and/or who currently have children from birth to 17 years of age. These families represented the Black, White, Hispanic, Multiracial, Asian/Pacific, and Native American populations.

While delivering these programs the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) strategy of Education was used. Services were delivered by local community partners that included Family Connection county collaborations, Family Resource Centers, Child Abuse Prevention Councils, Department of Education, Department of Public Health, Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Faith-based Organizations, and Housing Authorities. The CSAP strategy of Community-Based Process allowed FNC-GA to provide funding, program materials, and staff who administered appropriate and practical technical assistance to agencies related to program promotion, coordination, delivery, administration and collection of assessments and reporting. This technical assistance was provided on site and through auxiliary contacts.

All programs administered the requisite evaluation tools to implement the programs and curriculum and to capture data to measure program objectives. There was data collected to measure the required SAMHSA National Outcome Measures of: 1) 30 Day Use 2) Perceived availability of alcohol and drugs 3) perceived harm from substance abuse 4) attitude toward use among population at large.

The data collected revealed that:

• Of families who completed the program, 76 % increased their positive parenting attitudes to average or above average levels as measured by the AAPI-2 evaluation instrument.

• Of families who completed the program, 78 % increased their positive parenting knowledge to average or above average levels as measured by the Nurturing Quiz.

• Youth, ages 12-17, in the families who completed the adolescent programs showed an increase of 83% in the perception of drug perception of drug use as wrong.

• Participants who completed community-based trainings, workshops and retreats rated the quality of instruction received with a group rating of 4.7 on a 5.0 scale.

• Forty families completed and returned the “Nurturing Georgia Families” Project Follow-up Survey indicating increased positive parenting behaviors. 90% of these families indicate that they are now setting appropriate limits most always/always; 97.5% indicate they are now using appropriate praise/empathy most always/always; 92.5% indicate they are now setting appropriate limits/boundaries most always/always; 90% indicate they are allowing their children to make choices (power & independence) and are acting appropriately most always/always; and 77.5% increased their positive parenting behaviors by administering less corporal punishment most always/always.

• Youth, ages 12-17, in the families that completed the adolescent program 15% show an increase in the abstinence from drug/alcohol as measured by the Substance Survey.

• Contacts have been made regarding the families who completed the program who showed an above average level of increased positive parenting behaviors. Of these, there were zero incident reports received from Child Protective Services.

In addition to delivering parenting skills to over 800 families during FY 2006, FNC GA provided professional development training workshops, community-based parenting retreats and program technical assistance to facilitate effective programming and assist with referrals. The CSAP strategy of Community Based Process, and Information Dissemination were used.

The following 31 professional development trainings, workshops and retreats were held and the total attendance was 545.

1st Quarter -
1 – Basic Home Visitation Skills Training
3 - Nurturing Parenting Program Facilitator Trainings
1 - Safety for Home Visitors
1 - The Effects of Trauma

2nd Quarter –
1 - Basic Home Visitation Skills Training
3 – Parenting Retreats
1 - Nurturing Parenting Program Facilitator Training
1 – ‘Nurturing Skills’ Workshop
2 - Sub-contractor trainings/meetings

3rd Quarter –
2 - Child Abuse Awareness Workshops
1 - Basic Home Visitation Skills Training
3 - Parenting Retreats
2 – Nurturing Parent Program Facilitator Trainings
2 – ‘Nurturing Skills’ Workshop
1 – Faith-based Program Facilitator Training

4th Quarter –
1 - Child Abuse Awareness Workshop
2 – Parent Retreats
1 - Foster Parents–Talking & Listening to Children Workshop
1 - Parents–Talking & Listening to Children Workshop
2 - Parents Handling Anger & Stress Workshops

• Program Technical Assistance was provided on-going to sub-contractors with direct and in-direct contacts made to enable them to be as effective as possible in the delivery and evaluation of the Nurturing Parenting Programs. A total of 314 direct contact hours were made and a total of 972 indirect contact hours were made.

From the Director

We have been blessed to be able to continue to provide services to families that we believe will ultimately benefit children and our communities. We look forward to continuing to fine tune our programs and the services we provide to enhance the quality of life for future generations. If you’re interested in joining our projects or learning more about our organization, feel free to contact us.

Sue Laney
Executive Director
slaney@fncga.org