10 minute read
AIU Family Centers: A Bridge to the Community
AIU Family Centers:
A Bridge to the Community
By Dan Rinkus
It started with the music, a playful theme song familiar to many parents of small children. Then, miraculously, a blue dog six feet tall and made of felt appeared. “Bluey!” a group of children screamed in unison.
The famous pup bounded into McKeesport’s Renzie Park and was instantly greeted with hugs and high-fives. The children danced, sang and snagged selfies with Bluey, the eponymous star of one of their favorite shows. It was a highlight of the annual Spring Around Story Time event, engineered in part by the AIU’s McKeesport Family Center.
Little did they know, the person portraying Bluey was Laurie Bosnak Thompson, the center’s senior site director and one of the people responsible for the event.
“It was so hot, I thought I was going to melt!” she said later. “But it’s a great thing to do for the kiddos.”
That’s just one example of the lengths that staff from the AIU’s Family Centers will go to enrich families’ lives.
The Family Center's Purpose
The AIU’s 10 family centers are part of the Family and Community Education Services (FACES) branch of the AIU’s Early Childhood, Family and Community Services (ECFCS) division. It’s a wide ranging division that puts an emphasis on the success of the family unit and every member of it in every phase of life.
“A family center is embedded in the community,” Duquesne and Wilkinsburg Site Director Medina Goudelock said. “They are here to help families through good and bad — ups and downs.”
To that end, the structure of each family center differs depending on the size and complexity of each community’s needs. Hybrid family centers are located in Clairton, Homestead, McKeesport and Tarentum. Those centers primarily focus on families that have children from birth through age 18. “[Hybrid centers] have a resource manager, they have someone who can help with housing, they have someone who can help with WIC (Women, Infants and Children special nutritional program),” Goudelock said.
Home Visiting family centers serve Duquesne, McKees Rocks, Penn Hills, Wilkinsburg and Wilmerding. They primarily provide services at home to families who have children from birth to age five. Meanwhile, the Carnegie Family Center is solely focused on resources for families, including monthly groups. However, every AIU Family Center can collect and distribute resources, including groceries and baby items. They offer everything from education to family counseling and birthday parties to parenting resources.
The centers also support each other. Goudelock spoke over the din of children’s music at the same Spring Around Story Time event where other family centers were in attendance, along with representatives from Head Start and Project ELECT, a program that works with Allegheny County school districts to help teen parents attain their high school diplomas or GEDs.
“We want to give our families the chance to be on an even playing field,” Goudelock said. “We have those supports in place if they need them.”
Starting an Education
The AIU’s Family Centers are a stepping stone for local families who are starting their children’s educational journey. It’s a journey that starts with a knock on the door during a home visit.
“Whether they ask us or not, we encourage [attending] pre-school,” said East Allegheny Site Director Melissa Rider during a rainy spring morning in her office. “Since we have a Pre-K Counts classroom in our building, we make that initial referral to them.”
Whether it’s the AIU’s Head Start, Early Head Start or Pre-K Counts programs, it’s not just a matter of shuttling children into one classroom or another. “Assessing a child’s education needs is critical, not only to the child’s success, but to the family’s peace of mind,” Rider said as rain pelted her window.
The family centers provide home visiting services to prepare children for school and work with local families to identify and access pre-kindergarten classrooms best suited for their individual needs.
“I think a lot of times, families believe we are coming into their homes to observe them, see what they’re up to — just be in their business,” Rider said as the rain cleared and the sun came out. “But really, we are here to support them. We’re their advocate, and we’ll help them in any way that we can.”
Education was a primary fixture of the AIU’s Family Centers when they were created in the early 1990s in a funding partnership with school districts. While now funded through a state/county model, the names and the connections remain. The East Allegheny Family Center, located in Wilmerding, serves families in the school district community. All 10 family centers have relationships with school administrators, which is especially vital when kindergarten registration rolls around.
“The school district has a registration process for kindergarten and we gather all the information that is required of families,” Rider said. They also transport families to the East Allegheny School District’s kindergarten transition events at Logan Elementary School, which allow family center staff to work with school officials to meet teachers, receive critical education information and help get them enrolled.
It’s a similar story at the AIU’s other nine family centers, whether it’s in a large school district such as McKeesport (see page 17 for kindergarten preparedness information) or in McKees Rocks, home of the Sto-Rox School District.
The AIU’s Family Centers: a home for all seasons and all families, giving them opportunities to educate and enrich themselves and their communities.
A Personal Touch
Back in McKeesport, Onika St. Clair was bopping along to the “Bluey” theme song with her toddler son Nathan on her hip. The hilltop pavilion is a long way from the Caribbean, where St. Clair is from.
She learned about the McKeesport Family Center and its AIU co-tenant, Family and Immigrant Connections, during a doctor’s visit. The doctor’s goal was to help St. Clair find hospital transportation. As this new mother would soon find out, she had just tapped into a wealth of resources beyond transportation and health care.
“They have helped me get my U.S. status together —so I’m legal and I can work and provide a living for my son.” she said. “Coming from a foreign country, you don’t know where to go or how to get services on your own. So I’m grateful for [their help].”
Family Development Specialist Kim Robinson helped St. Clair find her footing. “She’s my service coordinator, but she has really become like a mom to me,” St. Clair said. “I don’t think I get the same services anywhere else.”
Emotional support for new mothers like St. Clair is critical, whether it’s through the family center’s mother-and-baby cooking classes, parent support groups or simple one-on-one conversations with staff.
“Especially as a new mom, it helps you focus on your child and it helps you make other friends,” St. Clair said.
“Whatever you might be focusing on that is stressful, you can just stop and think about your child’s joy. It really helps your mental health.”
Time to Celebrate
It’s a crisp April evening. One by one, families walk into the quiet courtyard of the Highlands Family Center in Tarentum. As they push through the doors…
“Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you…” sang dozens of parents and friends gathered inside the family center. Everywhere you look, there is activity. A child tosses rings around the neck of an inflated dinosaur. Another child, a precocious toddler, has birthday cupcake frosting smeared on his smiling face. All around, families are enjoying treats and presents they otherwise wouldn’t receive. That is the mission of Beverly’s Birthdays, one of the many organizations the AIU Family Centers partner with to provide a little relief for children and their families.
“It is such a great event to put on for our families,” said Program Director Lori Vollman, who oversees the family centers. “Both the kids and their parents get a chance to relax and have fun for a few hours. It is essential for their well-being.”
At most family centers, Beverly’s Birthdays puts on birthday parties every three months. Children with birthdays during that time gather for a party complete with food, games and a mobile shopping center that parks outside the family center. Children can pick out an outfit to go along with their other gifts.
Fathers Helping Fathers
“Iron sharpens iron.”
If you hang around Art Johnson long enough, you will hear him say that phrase. It’s part of a Bible verse that ends with, “so one person sharpens another.” For Johnson, a Fatherhood Facilitator for the AIU, it perfectly describes the mission of the AIU’s Fatherhood Programming.
Dubbed 365 Dads, the program has weekly and monthly meetings at AIU Family Centers in Clairton, Homestead, McKees Rocks, McKeesport and Wilmerding. The programming also hosts alumni group meetings and provides assistance for fathers incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail.
On a chilly January evening at the Sto-Rox Family Center, Johnson was warmed by the presence of men who looked to him for guidance.“
When they first become fathers, it’s scary,” Johnson said. He paused, glancing out a frosted window with a wistful look. “I made a lot of mistakes that young men make.”
Johnson is one of the three men who lead 365 Dads programming. The expansion of the program was made possible thanks to a 913% increase in grant funding from the Office of Child Development and Early Learning, overseen by Pennsylvania’s Departments of Education and Human Services.
“The grant is focused on fathers and male caregivers of children from birth to age five,” said Program Supervisor Larry Klinger. “We serve 75 fathers per year and the data shows we are making a difference. We’ve seen more positive outcomes in the development of children connected with our fatherhood programming, and more of our fathers are finding work. This data comes right out of our home visits with families and children, like those done at the Sto-Rox Family Center.”
The meetings provide fathers with a safe place to talk about their struggles, whether they are physical or emotional. 365 Dads utilizes the nationally-renowned 24/7 Dad curriculum developed by the National Fatherhood Institute. The facilitators use these research-based lessons to help fathers improve their parenting, child development and economic skills.
As Johnson will attest, it’s not just new fathers who are learning things. The lessons apply to him, too. “I love that my son is a better father than I was,” said Johnson, smiling at the thought. “Now I have the opportunity to do things with my grandchildren that I didn’t do back then.”
Read more from this issue: Fall 2023
