Program Area: Vulnerable Families

Helping Improve Family Stability and Child Well-Being

Executive Summary

Since 2002, The Nicholson Foundation has joined with government agencies, service providers, and community organizations in Newark to develop strategies and programs to address the critical issues facing the City’s families. More than half of Newark’s families are poor or low-income. Many of the City’s children live in families headed by a single parent with limited education, and in neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty and crime. When families live under these conditions, the capacity for consistent and involved parenting, necessary for a child’s healthy development, can be diminished. Other challenges prevalent in Newark’s disadvantaged families, such as domestic violence, substance abuse, health problems, and mental illness, can also affect parents’ ability to adequately care for their children. Without stable and consistent parenting, children are less likely to become healthy and productive adults.

The Foundation and community stakeholders recognize that the cumulative impact of the economic and social challenges facing many of Newark’s families contributes to a pattern of intergenerational family dysfunction. Given the central role of the family and the importance of nurturing and consistent parenting for healthy child development, Nicholson’s partners have been developing programs to enhance family stability and child well-being. In implementing these programs, they have incorporated evidence-based and promising best practices—in particular, community-based family support programs, the one-stop program model, and specialized one-stop centers.

Among the resulting Nicholson-supported initiatives are seven Family Success Centers (FSCs). These Centers, located in disadvantaged areas of Newark and surrounding urban communities in Essex and Union Counties, are neighborhood-based one-stop resources providing a wide range of coordinated services designed to promote family stability and child well-being. The Centers serve all families residing in their neighborhoods and offer both on-site services and linkages to community resources. The services include eligibility screening and applications for government benefits, on-site parenting classes, parent-child activities, support groups, and anti-violence workshops, as well as referrals for health, mental health, social, educational, job readiness, and job placement services. The Foundation has been supporting the development and implementation of a unified FSC data management system to improve service delivery, facilitate the coordination of services, and evaluate their effectiveness.

Additional initiatives that The Nicholson Foundation supports are specialized one-stop centers for families and family members with unique needs. These Centers serve grandparents and other kinship caregivers, non-custodial fathers, and victims of domestic violence. The Essex County Grandfamily Support Center provides a wide range of services tailored to meet the needs of kinship caregivers including financial, legal, housing, and other supportive services, as well as referrals to community providers for educational, health, and mental health services. Two Comprehensive Centers for Fathers, in Newark and Camden, serve non-custodial fathers who seek to play a more positive role in their children’s lives. These Centers provide services to help the fathers become self-sufficient, comply with their child support responsibilities, reconnect with their children, and develop better parenting skills. The Essex County Family Justice Center, designed to be a one-stop multidisciplinary center for victims of family violence, will provide and coordinate all needed emergency, medical, counseling, social, and legal services in one location.

Since the Foundation began focusing its efforts on helping vulnerable families, the City of Newark and the State of New Jersey have demonstrated a commitment to initiatives designed to promote family stability and child well-being. The City has been an essential partner in the development and operation of all the Newark-based FSCs and specialized family one-stop centers. Following the successful implementation of the Newark-based FSCs, the State began funding a statewide network of thirty-seven additional Family Success Centers. Therefore, including the seven Foundation-supported Centers, forty-four FSCs are currently operating in New Jersey.

For the full report, click the following link:
Full Report

For a summary of The Nicholson Foundation’s grants in this program area, click the following link:
Grant Summaries