While children stay with us, we embrace their parents and guardians with support to help resolve crisis and enhance stability.
Our multi-general approach focuses on family preservation to prevent foster care placements and help families stay together. Providence House Social Workers build trust with parents and guardians to create a preservation plan that addresses the challenges they’re facing, navigates systemic barriers, and helps them achieve their goals.
Parents and guardians visit their children regularly and engage in supportive case management, parent education, trauma assessments, and referrals to more than 100 partner organizations in the community.
Family Preservation
A Family Preservation Plan helps guide the services each family receives while engaging with Providence House. These plans are required for all families and allow them to establish priorities and set goals for their service period. Our Licensed Social Workers help parents and guardians identify unmet needs and community services that can help. Social Workers then refer the family to specialized resources offered by our more than 100 community partners for further support to resolve crisis and enhance stability for the future.
Family Visitation & Connection
Maintaining family bonds is a key element of engagement with Providence House. Throughout a child’s stay in our Crisis Nurseries, parents and guardians visit them at least twice per week. We have dedicated private family rooms to provide a comfortable, welcoming environment for our families to spend quality time with their children. On-site visits may be supervised by our Social Workers as part of our parent education services. If parents and guardians are able, they may take their children on day-long visits off-site and, after one week of engagement in our services, for up to two nights off-site per week.
Trauma Screenings & Care
Families seeking support from Providence House typically face more than one crisis leading up to their child’s stay, which may cause fear or worry for both the children and their parents or guardians. Frequent moving, unsafe housing, or medical and mental health treatment–while not violent incidents–can still be traumatic.
Many of our parents and guardians experienced trauma themselves as children, have been physically or emotionally harmed by a partner, experienced chronic homelessness, or have suffered other traumatic events.
Our Social Workers are certified to assess trauma in children and adults, provide interventions to alleviate symptoms, and make referrals for additional treatment.
Aftercare Program
Once families welcome their children back home after successfully resolving the crisis that brought them to us, parents and guardians can receive ongoing support from Providence House. Our Aftercare Program is a voluntary, 12-month service that offers weekly trauma-informed group parent support sessions, access to essential need items, and individual case management and referrals to ensure our families continue to receive critical support as they work to maintain stability.
