RAMBUH Family Center | Friends
of the Family | San Juan Tutorial Program
Institute for Successful Parenting | Empowering
People for Success
After School Initiative
Each Village Family Resource Center (FRC) is located
within its school and manned by a director, advisory board, parent
educators, and parent volunteers. The resource centers are designed
to provide educational and recreational programs for both children
and their parents.
The Village, along with the State Department of
Education, funds resource centers at Burns School on Putnam Street,
Martin Luther King School on Ridgefield Street and SAND School
on Main Street. The United Way, in collaboration with the Village,
funds resource centers at Annie Fisher School on Plainfield Street,
Clark School on Clark Street, and Mary Hooker School on Sherbrooke
Avenue.
Typically resource centers are open from 8:30 a.m.-7
p.m. during the school year with programs individualized to each
center and the community it serves. Centers offer pre-school programs
for children who arrive at school prior to the start of the academic
day. During morning hours, centers run parent activities, GED
classes, craft and sewing workshops and parent skills workshops.
In the afternoon, centers provide children's programs such as
dance, karate, crafts and various club activities. Often, parent
volunteers themselves are the instructors of afternoon events
or workshops.
Summer usually means a long break for school staff
and children, but a number of the resource centers remain open
for programming.
Each resource center is bound by grant parameters to adhere to
nine specifically-designed program components. In addition to
those, directors work on five key goals for his or her center:
-To develop a workshop dealing with Spanish/English
conversation, ideally run by a parent who is bilingual.
- To develop and offer more fathers programs to encourage teen
and young dads, and even grandfathers to be involved with kids
and center activities.
- To offer entrepreneurial workshops given by experienced entrepreneurs
for parents with job skills who are not working and might like
to open a business out of their homes.
- To identify a center-related activity designed to make a difference
in the community. (Examples include developing a voter registration
campaign or organizing an annual outing.)
- To identify community organizations and get those organizations
involved with the family resource centers.
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2 Holcomb Street
Hartford, CT 06112
p: (860) 543-8840
Director- Pastor James Lane
Family Specialist- Marcenia Waters
Parent/Teacher Coordinator- Tamara Smith
Click here for a printable
brochure on RAMBUH Family Center.
Vision: To improve the readiness of young
children in Hartford by enabling their families and communities
to achieve skills that strengthen parents’ relationship
with their children, with each other, and with their community.
Mission: To have a neighborhood center
where families can learn to communicate, relax and enjoy in a
safe environment. Our belief that strong families build strong
communities convinces us that we must respect the many types of
families now present in our communities. However, we are equally
convinced that some families are made up of grandparents, foster
parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. We look to our family center
to provide the atmosphere that will promote and support all aspects
of family life.
Partnerships and Collaboration
Partnerships - Upper Albany Neighborhood
Collaborative, Housed at the City of Hartford Department of
Human Services, Funded by the Hartford Foundation for Public
Giving
Collaboration With- Brighter Future Consortium,
MLK Resource Center, Hartford Child Development Clinic, CT Commission
on Children, Blue Hills Civic Association, Blue Hills Library,
Blue Hills Merchants, Burnham Street Block Club, The Northend
Church of Christ, The Urban Mission, Inc., 21st Century After
school Program, Friends of Keney Park, Men of Color Initiative
RAMBUH is a name that represents the affiliation
of parents who conceived and developed the program. The organization
includes the PTAs (Parent Teacher Association) of Sarah A. Rawson,
Martin Luther King Jr., Milner, Mark Twain, and Barbour schools;
Burnham Street Block Club; Upper Albany Collaborative; Blue
Hills Civic Association; and Blue Hills Library.
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A resource and referral service for pregnant and
parenting youth 21 years of age and younger. Also includes Families
with Futures, a job preparation program.
Purpose: Provide helpful and practical
assistance to youth who have primary parental responsibility for
their children. Friends of the Family volunteers and staff provide
access to information and services in the following areas:
• Day Care Information
• Housing Information
• Pre-natal and Parenting Support Programs
• Emergency and Basic Needs
• Counseling, Education and Job Training
• Career Mentoring Program
• Job Readiness Workshops
• Medical Services
• Entitlement Programs
• Off-site appointments offered in Hartford schools
Locations: 245 Locust Street, Hartford, CT 06114
(in the Hartford Adult Education Building) Directions
Also located at the Village South Center for Community
Life at 331 Wethersfield Avenue. For more information, please
call (860) 695-5943. Directions
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1304 Main St. #131, inside Barnard Brown
School
p: (860) 247-7166
f: (860) 522-3432
Click
here for a printable brochure on San Juan.
The San Juan Tutorial Program has provided
tutorial services in Hartford, specifically the Clay-Arsenal area,
for over 30 years.
The program merged with the Village in July
of 2001 and currently provides tutorial services at two (2) schools
- Barnard Brown Elementary School - 1304 Main Street and Quirk
Middle School - 85 Edwards Street.
Barnard Brown serves 50 students in grades
3-6. Quirk Middle School serves 20 students in grades 7-8. Both
programs utilize a referral system for enrollment.
The program at Barnard Brown runs Monday - Thursday, 3:15 pm -
5:30 pm.
The program at Quirk Middle School runs Monday - Thursday, 2:45
pm - 4:45 pm (in 2 groups of Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday).
Both offer occasional field trips.
The San Juan Tutorial Program focuses on assisting
students with homework assignments and also provides tutorial
services based on reasons for referral. Furthermore, we focus
on assisting our students with mastery of the skills (reading,
writing and math) necessary to excel in the CMT (CT Mastery Test).
We also provide recreational activities.
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Program Locations: The Village South Center
for Community Life,
Village Main Campus, Family Resource Centers,
or by special request
and planning, Common Sense Parenting Training can be brought
to
your own organization/facility.
Contact: Patricia Zuluaga
pzuluaga@villageforchildren.org
Click
here for a printable brochure on the Institute.
About
the Institute
The Village believes that the job of parenting is very difficult
and will likely become more difficult unless we can prepare parents
to achieve the success needed by our children, parents and the
greater community.
Now, more than ever, it is important to give professionals updated,
effective tools to be passed on to parents in order to raise children
with self discipline and the ability to form good relationships
that will assist them in becoming successful adults.
The Village created the Institute for Successful
Parenting in 2003. The Institute supports parents and professionals
in meeting the challenging task of effective parenting. Part of
our goal is to increase the capacity of individuals and communities
to deliver parenting education programs locally and throughout
the state.
The Village is working to preserve, strengthen and empower families
in a stable and high quality parenting education program. We envision
that all organizations and communities will have readily available
parenting education with information pertinent at each developmental
stage, and based on families' current needs and abilities. It
is with a great pleasure and confidence that we embarked in a
partnership with Boys and Girls Town, Hartford Public Schools
and United Way to provide Common Sense Parenting Training as our
first strategy at the Institute.
Purpose of Common Sense Parenting Program
The Common Sense Parenting Program teaches parents practical strategies
for interacting more positively with their children, and to use
effective and constructive discipline.
About the Program
Common Sense Parenting classes form a practical, skill-based parenting
program in which parents learn techniques to address issues of
communication, discipline, decision-making, relationships, self-control
and school success. The program aims to develop parents in their
role as "teacher of their children". Parents learn how
to communicate clearly and positively with their children, and
how to establish clear and realistic expectations for their children.
Parents learn the value of positive interactions such as giving
effective praise, and focusing on the good things their children
do. At the same time they learn how to correct misbehavior by
using appropriate consequences and showing their children what
to do instead.
Research Reference
Girls and Boys Town has researched the effectiveness of Common
Sense Parenting's basic principles. In addition, Common Sense
Parenting earned an "outstanding" rating from The Parent
Council and was a 1997 Seal of Approval Winner from the National
Parenting Council. The U.S. Air Force selected Common Sense Parenting
to support its outreach efforts to military families.
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The Empowering People for Success Program is a statewide
welfare to work initiative. Contracts are funded by both the Department
of Social Services (DSS) and the Department of Labor (DOL). The
program is designed to assist recipients of Temporary Family Assistance
achieve self-reliance and healthy independence through intensive,
solution focused case management and care coordination that identifies
and reduces the effect of barriers to sustained employment. The
program operates a non-traditional work schedule and provides
home-based services in order to meet the needs of our families.
Programs include an
Employment Success Program (ESP), a Compliance Intervention Program,
and Prevention Services: Individual Performance Contract (IPC).
Our Mission: The Empowering People for
Success program is dedicated to empowering families to succeed
by identifying and reducing the effects of barriers to employment,
increasing access to community resources, and minimizing risk
to children. The program is committed to identifying family strengths
and helping to empower families to use these strengths to succeed
in employment, education, and community building.
For more information, please contact:
John Stafford
p: (860) 297-0598, ext. 637
Emal: jstafford@villageforchildren.org
Click
here for a printable brochure on ASI.
After School Initiative (ASI) is an after-school
and extended-year program, funded by the Hartford Foundation
for Public Giving, that provides middle school students with
an integrated program focused on academic achievement, social/emotional
well being, and personal growth. ASI program activities provide
students with academic support and enrichment, while also offering
diverse opportunities for students to develop life skills, explore
new interests, practice leadership skills, and be of service
to their communities.
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