FACILITATING
ORGANIZATION
Strengthening New Hampshire's Network of Family Support
As NH’s Facilitating Organization for Family Resources Centers, New Hampshire Children’s Trust (NHCT) provides backbone support, coordination, training, and technical assistance for the implementation of operational and quality control standards for NH’s network of Family Resource Centers (FRCs).
In partnership with FRCs, NHCT works to promote evidence-based programming, developing mechanisms for cross-network collaboration, monitoring progress, centralizing data collection and analysis, and guiding the implementation of Standards of Quality for Family Strengthening and Support and Family Resource Center of Quality (FRC-Q) designation process.
Building Supportive Communities
Quality Designation
NHCT provides technical assistance and support to FRCs to establish the continuous quality improvement processes necessary to qualify for designation as a Family Resource Center of Quality by the NH Wellness and Primary Prevention Council (WPPC). Support includes technical assistance around the implementation of the Standards of Quality for Family Strengthening and Support and the NH Operational Standards for NH FRC-Qs.
This may include facilitating the FRC self-assessment process to plan action steps and implement strategies that increase quality, identifying training opportunities that help execute those strategies, and providing guidance and support in preparing their application to the Wellness and Primary Prevention Council.
Additionally, NHCT provides technical assistance to the Wellness and Primary Prevention Council, facilitating the reviews of applications received. NHCT support includes orienting WPPC members to the review process, receiving applications, convening review teams, coordinating communication between reviewers, scheduling review-process site visits, and providing other needed support during the reviews.
To read WPPC agendas and minutes, click here. The WPPC can be contacted via email at info@wppcnh.org.
Kinship Navigation Program
Rooted within NH Family Resource Centers, Kinship Navigation is a community-based program designed to strengthen and support the wellbeing of kinship caregivers, children, and their families statewide. Kinship Navigators coordinate services and promote effective partnerships among public and private agencies to ensure all kinship families are seen, served, and successful.
Kinship Navigators walk alongside caregivers and their families to ensure access to high-quality, responsive services tailored to meet their family’s individual needs. Navigators are specially trained to guide kinship families through the many systems that impact their lives, including child welfare, aging, education, housing, and healthcare, among others.
Caregiver education and support groups are available to help families with similar experiences make new connections and increase their social support networks.
Financial Assistance is available to help caregivers meet concrete needs such as clothing, school supplies, childcare, home goods, educational supports, physical/mental healthcare needs as well as legal services and court fees, etc.
Standardized Data Collection
New Hampshire Children’s Trust (NHCT) promotes coordinated outcome measurement and continuous quality improvement within and across NH Family Resource Centers (FRCs) and family strengthening programs. A common data platform, standardized data collection, and the integration of existing data silos are important functions to tell the story of FRC impact, both individually and as a sector.
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In January of 2020, New Hampshire Children’s Trust launched the Family Support Data System (FSDS), built on a QuickBase® platform, to:
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Provide the only uniform data platform for Family Resource Centers (FRCs) across New Hampshire.
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Elevate and celebrate, through data, the scope, impact, and importance of FRCs as a sector.
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Expand FRC reporting on new and existing state-funded initiatives, as well as local programming, via a consolidated and streamlined process.
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The role of NHCT is to provide training and technical assistance to FSDS users and state agency partners, to support FRCs in data usage for quality improvement, and to expand and streamline the FSDS as a common data platform so to improve child and family outcomes and support the work of the FRCs.
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Evaluation
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NHCT, FRCs, and other state partners use the Protective Factors Survey (PFS2), for use with parents and caregivers participating in family support and child maltreatment prevention services, as a primary measure of family strengthening work.
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The survey results are designed to:
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provide agencies with a snapshot of the families they serve,
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measure changes in family protective factors, and
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help identify areas where staff can focus on increasing protective factors for each family
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The FSDS also includes a comprehensive Needs Assessment section, where FRC staff can work with families to understand their strengths and challenges, including the urgency of needs, and together plan how to build skills, access resources, and create conditions where both parents and children can thrive. Changes in Needs Assessment results provide another snapshot of growth and change over time.
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NHCT offers training and TA to Family Resource Centers and others on data fidelity, evaluation best practices including the use of logic models, and data-based decision-making.
Elevation and Awareness
NHCT is responsible for creating and utilizing marketing and communications content and strategies to elevate FRCs and available services.
This includes increasing awareness of Family Support New Hampshire as the statewide coalition of Family Resource Centers. In addition, the NHCT Mar/Comms team provides consistent branding guidelines and materials for the Kinship Navigation Program, so to standardize program outreach within FRCs.
Projects include, but are not limited to:
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Development of consistent marketing and branding for FRCs, FRC-Qs, and FSNH
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Website and branding revitalization for FRCs
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Development and distribution of resources that promote Strengthening Families and the Protective Factors Framework
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Facilitation of the FRC Communicators Community of Practice
The Children’s Trust recognizes that Family Resource Centers (FRCs) and all family support and strengthening programs are integral to our mission of leading the drive to ensure safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and environments for children.
FRCs support families by offering a variety of services designed to promote family protective factors, helping families be their strongest and mitigating the risk that child abuse and neglect will occur. They are diverse programs that meet the needs of the families in their communities in individualized ways.
Integral to the very definition of FRCs is that they are responsive to the needs of their communities and can look very different from each other. Despite diverse programming, there are principles of family strengthening and support, and other commonalities that bind them.
The Children’s Trust has been a leader in the effort to help FRCs highlight their commonality in ways that would promote their sustainability. Learn more about the statewide network of Family Resource Centers at www.fsnh.org.