The Family Preservation and Support Services programs focus on strengthening families by protecting them, teaching them, and healing them.

Characteristics

Family Preservation services are a continuum of intervention programs offering intensive counseling, education, and concrete support delivered in the homes of families who have children who may be at imminent risk of being placed in foster care or who are suffering moderate to severe behavioral and/or emotional problems. The goal is to remove the risk of harm to the child instead of removing the child from the home as often as possible. Children's Home has been one of the area’s earliest pioneers in providing home-based family preservation services.

Family Support services are a continuum of prevention programs whose primary goal is to build strong communities and loving families through community-wide collaboration and prevention programming.

Services Offered

Family Preservation Services:

Family Based Intervention

The Family Based Intervention Program (FBI) provides individual and family therapy to children with behavioral and emotional problems whose family has an open case with the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). The child is the identified client, but services are intended to address family dynamics as well as individual concerns. Services include assessment, diagnosis, individual and family counseling, crisis intervention, support and advocacy, parent education, and community outreach. Children served must be between the ages of 2 and 18 and reside in Peoria, Tazewell, or Woodford counties.

System of Care

System of Care (SOC) is a program to help children who are DCFS wards remain stable in their placements in foster care, either with relatives or with a foster family. SOC staff assist the children and their caretakers in creating a team to support them. The team then identifies strengths and areas for improvement for the child and family, as well as goods and services to reach the goals. Such services include, but are not limited to, therapy (individual, group and family), mentoring, school monitoring and advocacy, tutoring, homemaker services, referrals and linkage to community resources, transportation, and other goods as needed. SOC also maintains communication with the child’s caseworker on a regular basis. The child must be living in Peoria County to receive SOC services from Children’s Home.

Family First

The Family First program works with families referred by DCFS who are at high risk of having one or more of their children removed from their care due to abuse or neglect issues. The families receive intensive, in-home case management and counseling services in order to help them learn quickly how to keep their children safe and help them access long-term resources when necessary in order to prevent out of home placement for the children. The length of services provided to a family is up to three months with the possibility of short term extensions when warranted. Services include assessment, individual and family counseling, support and advocacy services, parent education, child development and community outreach. Families served must reside in Peoria, Tazewell, or Woodford counties.

Family Support Services:

Teen REACH (Responsibility, Education, Achievement, Caring, Hope)

Through a partnership with Common Place, Planned Parenthood Heart of Illinois, and the Greater Peoria Family YMCA, and major funding provided by the Illinois Department of Human Services, Children's Home provides Teen REACH at four locations throughout the City of Peoria.  Teen REACH focuses on increasing academic success and reducing risk-taking behaviors of school-aged youth between the ages of 8 and 16 years old with locations at Common Place, Lincoln Middle School, Tyng Primary School and the YMCA.  Programming includes academic assistance in the form of homework help, tutoring and study skills development; life skills education to reduce a wide range of risk taking behaviors; exposure to recreation, sports and cultural/artistic activities to provide safe outlets for youth to try new skills parenting involvement are encouraged to enhance each participants growth.
 

PEP Squad (Preventing Early Pregnancy)

PEP Squad utilizes one-time and multi-session presentations to increase youth knowledge on topics including but not limited to, abstinence, STD and HIV/AIDS, healthy relationships, reproductive health as well as the effects of alcohol and substance abuse/use on sexual behavior. In addition, PEP Squad works to increase public awareness of issues related to teen pregnancy, STD and HIV/AIDS through print media, public service announcements and theatrical performances presented by peer educators. Programming is offered throughout Peoria County to educate and empower youth and their families in an effort to reduce teen pregnancy in the City of Peoria and surrounding area.

Hand-n-Hand

Hand-in-Hand is a family involvement program focused on developing a strong bond between school, family, and the community to ensure children receive a quality education. A Hand-n-Hand Team directs the program at each school comprised of parents, teachers, and community members. The parent curriculum is Family Leadership College. The College is designed to educate families with fundamental community leadership skills. Families learn how to improve their child’s learning through school-specific curriculum topics such as: understanding your personal learning style, how school policy is made, how to be healthy effective communicators for positive advocacy, conflict resolution, understanding and valuing differences, and how to use technology for leadership. The teacher curriculum is a set of 10 in-services designed to enhance teachers’ ability to work with parents and the community to give our children the best education possible. The TEAM also facilitates the creation and support of a positive, inviting atmosphere within the school. Several family nights are planned and implemented to create a fun, non-threatening environment that encourages families to become involved at their child’s school. Hand-n-Hand targets schools in Peoria District 150. Each school is selected for participation annually.

Leaders of Tomorrow

The Leaders of Tomorrow Program (LOT) is a youth development program administered by the Children’s Home designed to provide youth the support services needed to ensure a positive high school experience. Services include but are not limited to: educational support in the form of tutoring and small group sessions to enhance and improve academic performance, the opportunity to perform community service and development activities to assist youth in exploring different cultures, acquiring life/family skills, planning for college or advanced technical/vocational training, and job development. Financial incentives are earned as youth progress through the program and high school. Upon graduation, the funds accrued from participation in the activities can be used to pay only for educational / vocational expenses beyond high school up to two years after the completion of high school.
 

For more information on Family Preservation and Support Services, please contact

Liz Rickert , Director.
Phone: (309) 687-7403
E-mail: lrickert@chail.org 
Fax: (309) 687-7421