Family support

A school-based family-centered network of services using a neighborhood-linked approach to enhance the well-being of families

Vision: Schools and neighborhoods are effectively supporting the healthy development of children and their families

Mission: To strengthen children and their families through a collaborative community network

Community resources are brought directly into targeted neighborhoods and schools through family support team members who establish trusting relationships, build on the families’ strengths, and fill gaps in their access to and use of services available to them.

Tulsa Alliance for Families is not a service. It is a combination of new and existing service processes and an organizational structure linked by a common vision that requires active participation of several agencies and organizations as well as families and community stakeholders.

Management: The Community Service Council serves as the central coordinating body for program administration, planning, implementation, data collection/evaluation, resource/policy development, and training.

Partners: Community Service Council, Tulsa Public Schools, State of Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Tulsa Housing Authority, Family & Children's Services, Parent Child Center of Tulsa, Tulsa City/County Health Department, Parent-Child Center of Tulsa, Tulsa Works/Goodwill Industries of Tulsa, YMCA of Greater Tulsa

Funding: A master budget plan of combined federal, state, and local funds, combined with potential private dollars ensure the continuation and replication of the neighborhood initiative. This funding approach will demonstrate how our community can use a variety of funding mechanism to address complex problems and reduce the likelihood of placing undue responsibility on one institution or agency.

The Alliance's history, focus & model:

The recipients of service are the over 1000 families and their children who attend the three targeted elementary schools and/or live in their surrounding neighborhoods. The schools and their staff also benefit from the service as the three sites’ Student Success Teams are focused on assisting the three schools with issues concerning school attendance, Medicaid reimbursement, parent and family engagement with the school, and the health and safety of the students. As a partner in the Alliance, the State of Oklahoma Tulsa County Department of Human Services’ Child Welfare Division also benefits as the support and intervention for the families helps reduce the need for expensive welfare child welfare placements.

The federal Family Support/Family Preservation Act authorized funding to be used by states to reduce the risk of child abuse, promoting more effective support for families and reforming service delivery.

In Tulsa County, more than thirty organizations, including three school districts, came together in 1995 to lay the groundwork for a single grant application to the Oklahoma Department of Human Services for federal funds to create the Tulsa Alliance for Families. Tulsa's Metropolitan Human Services Commission, staffed through the Community Service Council, convened the planning process, and Tulsa Public Schools served as the applicant agency. In March of 1996, the proposal was approved.

The Alliance chose predominantly lower-income neighborhoods surrounding Eugene Field/Riverview Park and Mark Twain/Sandy Park elementary schools and public housing communities for initial implementation, building upon their successes as model sites of the School of the 21st Century.

TAF has reorganized the work of over fifteen organizations and initiatives into a collaborative "family support" team approach at the neighborhood level. It links families to the schools, needed community resources, neighborhood activities, and to each other. It also links parents and children together. It does all this as early in the lives of the children as possible, even before birth. And, it facilitates action to prevent or reduce the effects of crisis situations. Each component (i.e., Family and Schools Together) of the collaborative approach is research based and designed to accomplish a specific objective.

For all families, the Alliance provides outreach to promote prevention and early access to help. For families with critical needs, the Alliance provides extensive outreach and support through a comprehensive and coordinated team effort.

The Alliance's family-centered approach:

Focuses on each family's strengths as well as its needs

Is based upon new partnerships among agencies, working together flexibly, as partners with families

Is comprehensive and inclusive

By bringing resources directly into neighborhoods and schools, working with families of young children where they are, and establishing meaningful interpersonal relationships, TAF builds on the families’ strengths and promotes easier access to needed help. This approach greatly improves the likelihood that children succeed in school by meeting the basic physical and emotional needs of their families.

The Alliance’s collaborative, neighborhood based team approach is unique in the Tulsa area. Its work is coordinated with its primary partners as well as with a host of other groups both locally and at the state level. It was a key partner in TulsaWorks, a United Way venture grant supported initiative to determine needed strategies to engage highly disadvantaged individuals, many on TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), on a track towards self-sufficiency.

2003 highlights:

GOAL: Preserving and Supporting Families

Assisting families

The Tulsa Alliance for Families (TAF) continues to promote effective partnerships between families and neighborhood elementary schools in an effort to nurture the growth and development of young children so that they can succeed in school and become useful, contributing citizens in the community. During the 2002/2003 school year, the Tulsa Alliance for Families helped 732 very low-income families, in TAF’s three targeted neighborhoods, to identify their family strengths and move toward increased stability. With 154 new families enrolled between July 1, 2002 and June 30, 2003, membership in TAF grew by over 20%.

Linking families, schools, and community services

Incorporating the principles and premises of family support practice in their day-to-day interactions with families, the TAF and TPS elementary school partnerships continued to integrate social services and education “under one roof.” Families who have difficulty clothing, feeding, and housing their children have little time and energy for traditional family nurturing and enrichment. As “full service school sites,” the Tulsa Alliance for Families, in collaboration with Eugene Field, Mark Twain, and Roosevelt Elementary Schools, provided the necessary services and opportunities that are crucial supports for both parents and children, subsequently leading to improved educational outcomes, enhance family well-being, and a healthier community.

Utilizing a “wraparound” process of service delivery, in partnership with TAF’s collaborative community agencies, school-based “Student Success Teams” focused on early periodic screening, diagnosis, and treatment (EPSDT) including extensive home visitation/outreach to families, assisting families in meeting their basic needs, intensive family support through case management services, nursing treatment, referrals for medical care and community services, crisis intervention, individual, group, and family counseling. Delivery of TAF family support services from July 1, 2002 through June 30, 2003 resulted in over 33,000 units of direct service, home visits and face-to-face contacts with students and family members. In addition, funding from the State of Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs’ State Advisory Group on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention allowed TAF the opportunity to provide community-based prevention and early intervention services to 167 students, living in two of TAF’s targeted neighborhoods, who are coping with the incarceration of a family member or are exhibiting at-risk behaviors during their elementary school years.

Collectively, these family support services translated into what TAF defines as critical factors for improved student learning and success in school; healthier lifestyles for children and adults; positive parenting skills and attitudes; improved family health literacy and child/youth development, and enhanced family literacy skills with movement towards gainful employment and self-sufficiency, and ultimately, the creation of stronger families.

Enhancing family functioning

One widely recognized way to strengthen student performance and prevent school failure is to increase family involvement in the school. In collaboration with Family & Children’s Services, Inc. and the State of Oklahoma Department of Human Services, the FAST (Families and Schools Together) and “Reading Starts With Us” Family Literacy series brought students, parents, teachers, and community members together in a collaborative effort to enhance student learning as well as engage families with school activities and faculty/staff. Responsive to the community and cultural contexts of the school and neighborhood, the relationships developed through FAST’s 8-week after-school program series formed a social safety net of multifaceted protective factors for young, at-risk children that helped them to succeed at home, in school, and in the community. Parents’ involvement with their children dramatically increased through FAST’s structured social activities while providing opportunities for the formation of a strong network with other families within their school and neighborhood.

Over 500 Eugene Field, Mark Twain, and Roosevelt students and their families attended intergenerational family literacy events, connecting early reading for children with adult literacy skills for parents and grandparents. Interactive family literacy activities, combined with family fun shared over pizzas, and the joy of each child taking home the gift of several new books at the conclusion of each session, made family literacy events popular school functions for the entire family.

Encouraging parent involvement and leadership

TAF’s outreach strategies continue to enhance both the quantity and the quality of family connections with the school, with service providers, and with the community. As parents, affiliated with the Tulsa Alliance for Families, have emerged as leaders in their schools and neighborhoods, they have played vital roles in the development and delivery of family support services. Instrumental in persuading other parents to become more engaged in school and community activities, TAF’s parent leaders have also empowered their friends and neighbors to explore the actions necessary to move towards increased self-sufficiency, truly emerging as advocates for their own children.

Representatives of TAF’s parent leadership and “Student Success Teams” from TAF’s three partnership elementary schools shared their experiences and insights related to the characteristics and benefits of family support in schools during their presentation at the national MetLife Foundation Family School Invitational Conference held in Houston, TX in February 2003. This marks the second year the Tulsa Alliance for Families and Tulsa Public Schools’ TAF partnership elementary school sites have been recognized by the MetLife Foundation Family School Connection Project and the National Coalition of Advocates for Students for their “exemplary innovation and commitment to building strong family and school partnerships through engaging parents and families from traditionally underserved populations in their children’s schooling.”

Expanding community collaboration

In September 2003, the Oklahoma State Department of Education awarded over 1 million dollars, over a 5-year period, in 21st Century Community Learning Center funding to the Westside 21st Century Community Learning Center Collaborative. The collaborative brings together three of Tulsa’s most respected community-based agencies – the Community Service Council of Greater Tulsa (Tulsa Alliance for Families), Family & Children’s Services, Inc., and the YMCA of Greater Tulsa – to serve, in cooperation with the Tulsa Public School District’s Eugene Field and Mark Twain Elementary Schools. Beginning in January 2004, this collaborative partnership is building upon the unique strengths of each agency and school site in an effort to maximize service delivery and outcomes for every participating child and family. As part of the neighborhood promotion of this new collaborative, a basketball intramural program was launched, in November 2003, at both Eugene Field and Mark Twain. Over 140 students and their families participated in basketball drills, practices, and scrimmage games, which culminated in a tournament celebration at the Westside YMCA in mid-December.

The primary goal of the Westside 21st Century Community Learning Center Collaborative is to provide additional services to address the academic needs of Eugene Field and Mark Twain students. The highly integrated, hands-on lessons and activities target the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s PASS Core Curriculum areas of reading, mathematics, science, language arts, social studies, and the arts. This experientially-based program is designed to provide tutoring opportunities that will complement classroom instruction. Wrap-around activities include technology, health, wellness, and safety education, as well as mentoring and service learning opportunities. In addition, the center utilizes the expertise of the Tulsa Alliance for Families through the expansion of family support services, including family literacy activities, family fun events, summer camp, adult education, and GED classes held during the evenings and week-ends on a year-round basis.

The Community Service Council of Greater Tulsa’s Tulsa Alliance for Families provides the program administration, while the Westside 21st Century Community Learning Center utilizes the excellent after-school, evening, and week-end site resources available at the Westside YMCA, with both Eugene Field and Mark Twain Elementary Schools serving as before-school sites. Transportation services are included in the grant funding for students and their families. Family & Children’s Services, Inc. provides student/family counseling, case management services, and family activity programs such as “Families and Schools Together – FAST”. The center will employ a highly trained certified staff of team coordinators, family support specialists, and technicians, with the additional employment of bilingual personnel and the utilization of certified Eugene Field and Mark Twain Elementary School teachers who will address the PASS Core Curriculum academic areas identified in the grant. Additional staff will include specialists with college degrees or certifications pertaining to their area of expertise and school age child care staff with CDA or Master Teacher status.

Some helpful links:

Tulsa Public Schools www.tulsaschools.org
Parent Child Center of Tulsa www.parentchildcenter.org
Oklahoma Department of Human Services www.okdhs.org
Child Welfare League of America www.cwla.org
Family Support America www.familysupportamerica.org
National Congress for Community Economic Development www.ncced.org
National Governors Association www.nga.org/nga/1,1169,,00.html

Congratulations to CSC's Tulsa Alliance for Families, winner of one of the eight Creating Partnerships for Oklahoma Families Awards for Best Community-Based Services in the State. TAF received $1,000 as a result of being an award winner. The presentation was made at the Fifth Annual conference in Oklahoma City cosponsored by Oklahoma Department of Human Services, DHS County Administrators' Association, Oklahoma Association of Community Action Agencies, Oklahoma Department of Commerce, Oklahoma Department of Corrections, Oklahoma Department of Education, Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth, and the University of Oklahoma SATTRN Project.

For more information: 918-585-5551 - Community Service Council, 16 East 16th Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74119

The Tulsa Alliance for Families was an exciting model program, involving three area elementary schools in low-income neighborhoods, plus other community partners, with coordination and support from the Community Service Council.

Much of the TAF model (described below) is now part of the Tulsa Area Community Schools Initiative (TACSI). To learn more about TACSI, please contact Jan Creveling at the Council, 585-5551.

The Tulsa Alliance for Families

The Alliance's history, focus & model: