Turning Points For Children

Programs: Community umbrella agency services: turning points for children is the sole provider of in-home protective services, foster care and adoption services for philadelphia's community umbrella agencies 3 and 9 ("cua3 and cua9") cua3, which is located in lower northeast philadelphia, was launched in january 2014. Cua9 which serves west and southwest philadelphia, was launched in november, 2014. Each currently services over 600 families and 1,500 children annually, along with sponsoring a wide variety of community education and engagement activities.

resource parent/foster care is a foster care program that provides safe and healthy homes for over 500 children in philadelphia. Turning points for children's foster care program provides safe and healthy homes for over 500 children in philadelphia. Sometimes, it becomes necessary to remove a child from their family while issues related to child abuse and neglect are addressed. When this happens, a turning points case manager works closely with the biological and foster family, relative caregivers, dhs, the courts and other agencies to help the family address its challenges and reunify the child with the biological family as soon as possible. When that is not possible, turning points works to find another permanent family relationship for the child, either through permanent legal custodianship or adoption. Foster parents provide temporary care in their own homes to bring stability to a child during a time of often severe trauma. Children enter foster care because of child abuse, neglect or special family circumstances requiring that the child receive out-of-home care. Foster care services are intended to provide temporary care for a child until he or she is reunited with their family or until another permanent living situation is found. The goal of the foster care program is to provide a safe environment which is supportive of the child's development. The program assists the child's parents in resuming responsibility and custody or to attain an alternative permanent placement for the child as soon as possible.

families and schools together ("fast"): fast is an evidenced-based prevention and early intervention program that helps children succeed by empowering parents, connecting families, improving the school climate, and strengthening community engagement. Fast targets early socialization and learning to build a lifetime of success in school and beyond. Fast team members (local parents, teachers, and community members) coach parents to practice school-readiness skills with their children. Participating families meet once a week for a total of eight weeks. Subsequent to the completion of the first eight sessions, families will continue to meet once a month over a 22-month period. The fast program operates in schools across philadelphia with specially trained facilitators.

families and wellness nutrition ("fawn"): fawn provides thousands of under-served families across philadelphia with consistent emergency food and resources to regularly keep food on the table. We collaborate with local grocers, food banks, community gardens, volunteers and health promotion advocacy groups to expand access to healthier food choices, budget-friendly meal planning, and meaningful connections to a continuum of other support services. At our emergency food pantry we strive to offer all the choices of a mainstream grocery store with the added support of professional social workers and knowledgeable staff to address the other challenges life has in store. Parenting programs: parents want the best for their children, but not every parent knows how to do so in a way that yields positive results. This suite of programs prevents child abuse and neglect by working with parents to build up parenting skills. Studies have shown that effective parenting programs are linked with decreased rates of child abuse and neglect and increased physical, cognitive and emotional development in children. In some cases, it's difficult for parents to engage in effective communication with their children because they have never seen it modeled before. The parenting programs provide peer education groups throughout the city to at-risk adults/caregivers; pregnant and parenting teen mothers; and specialized fathers' groups. The groups are open to families living in philadelphia with a child under 21. Our teen parents are generally age 15-19, and at times as young as 14 years old. Our groups use an evidence-based curriculum, "the nurturing parenting program and "triple p" with the goal of promoting healthy, positive, nurturing relationships between the parent and child.