| | Austin Families, Inc. | Hits 35 | | | | |
| | | | Site Information | | | Provides child care resource and referral services to the public and corporations.
| FamilyConnections’ mission is to improve the quality of early education and care for our community’s children by providing information, education, and resources to those individuals who have the greatest influence on children during the critically important formative years – parents, caregivers, teachers, and community leaders.
After 10 years of serving children and families in Austin and the Central Texas area, Connections Resource Center was well-established as a thriving community-based resource located in Central Austin, three blocks from the busy interstate highway that traverses the Central Texas region. Austin Families, Inc. has provided services to Austin and the 10-county surrounding area for the past 25 years. As the community’s resource and referral agency, one of its primary roles has been to help families locate child care for their children, help eligible families pay for it, or identify resources to help them pay for it. Collectively, the two agencies served over 25,000 individuals in 2003.
As a first stop for parents of young children, child care providers, and the general public, FamilyConnections provides the information and resources necessary to support the optimal development of young children. Foremost among these services is FamilyConnections’ Family Place Library ( www.lff.org/programs/family.html), a proven means of improving the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of caregivers so that they have not only developmentally appropriate expectations of what young children can do, but also the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to nurture and support these youngsters toward the accomplishment of appropriate developmental milestones. As a certified Family Place Library, FamilyConnections has been able to further its role as a community partner in supporting nurturing families in which children are provided the range of experiences they need to thrive, including exposure to books and reading; child care providers are helped to integrate emergent literacy into their curricula, with the result that children will enter school better equipped with early literacy skills; parents develop confidence for their long-term involvement in their children’s education; and families will create stronger family networks. Low-income, multiple-risk populations whose access to other resources may be limited are the priority for FamilyConnections’ community outreach efforts, but services are available at no charge to all parents and child care professionals in the region.
Services include: The Family Place Library (children’s books and educational toys; books on child development for child care professionals and books on parenting; resources for parents and child care professionals) • the mobile library - the Resource Center on Wheels • teacher training workshops and individual mentoring programs • parenting classes • The Parents of Newborns Project -- one-to-one meetings with all parents of newborns in three area hospitals to provide parenting resources and information • Celebration of Families, the city’s annual parenting festival • Children’s Connection, the weekly question and answer column in the Austin American-Statesman • child care referrals and other forms of information to educate families • child care resource development and documentation of the child care supply • training and technical assistance for child care providers, including mentoring and accreditation support programs • working with employers to develop employer-assisted child care programs • administration of child care voucher programs for special populations, including low-income, homeless, and teen parents • information and advocacy in the community regarding child care issues
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| | | Contact Information | | | Austin Families, Inc. 825 E. 53rd. 1/2 St., Bldg. E-101 Austin, TX 78751, Tel: 512-478-5725 Fax: 512-474-2626 http://www.austinfamilies.org/ E-mail Austin Families, Inc. | | | | If you're the owner or webmaster of this site then please Claim this Link Once you claim this link and we approve it you will be the only one who can modify the listing in the future. |
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| | Date Added: Mon Aug 29 2005 | | Last Updated: Tue Aug 30 2005 | | | | |
