Emily Woodward This episode is part of a series showcasing New Hampshire’s Family Resource Centers or FRCs. In each episode, we’re joined by representatives from one of the state-funded FRCs to talk about the specific services, supports, and resources that are available to all families in New Hampshire. Starting us off today is Melissa Gallagher, Chair of the Family Resource Center Network of New Hampshire. Welcome, Melissa. Melissa Gallagher Hi, thanks so much. It’s great to be here. Emily Woodward So let’s start with the basics for anyone who may be hearing about family resource centers for the very first time. What is a family resource center and what kinds of supports can families find there? And who can access those services? Melissa Gallagher Sure, so there are 16 family resource centers located throughout the state, and each has its own history and sort of personality. Each are rooted in the needs of their own communities. New Hampshire Resource Centers are places where people of all ages in our state can find support, connection, and resources. They offer programs and services for parents, caregivers, and children. Kinship supports, home visiting, and other forms of one-to-one support. Also access to basic needs, financial literacy programs like budgeting help, tax assistance, and a lot more. Family resource centers are open to everyone and there are no eligibility requirements to connect. And there is no one type of person that can receive support. They truly are for everyone. Emily Woodward With sixteen resource centers located throughout New Hampshire, each serving the unique needs of its own community, how do the quality standards kind of help create consistency across the statewide network while still allowing each FRC to tailor its programs and services to the various families that it serves? Melissa Gallagher Right, so as I shared, each Family Resource Center really reflects the unique needs of their community, and we are connected as a whole system. And this is the Family Resource Center Network of New Hampshire. So being unified and collaborative as a system serves to strengthen our work, our advocacy for issues impacting families and communities, and our visibility as critical organizations serving the people of New Hampshire. We organize ourselves around the standards of quality for family strengthening and support, which we all embrace. And they really help guide each center in assessing where they are in their efforts toward greater quality improvement. So for example, we’re looking at things like how we listen to and involve families, how we promote positive family relationships, how we contribute to the strengthening of our own communities. How we ensure that we’re being thoughtful and inclusive of different family cultures and traditions and so on. These standards are based on the strengthening families’ protective factors, which are based on research showing that families are strongest when certain things are in place and sort of what that looks like. So the five protective factors, kind of naming them and describing them, there’s parental resilience, and that’s really like that ability to bounce back and manage everyday stress and handle crisis or adverse adversity. Social connections. So we are promoting positive, trusting relationships with friends and family members and even neighbors that provide emotional support. The third protective factor is concrete support in times of need. So that would be access to basic resources and services like food, housing, healthcare, financial help that help you know people navigate stressful times and then knowledge of parenting and child development. So that’s an understanding of good parenting strategies and you know, what are those milestones physically. Physically, cognitively, and emotionally in their growth. And finally, social and emotional competence of children. So this is a child’s own ability to interact positively, communicate clearly, and regulate their own emotions and behaviors. And this is really the kind of these are the intentional practices that family resource centers are all doing. Emily Woodward So it sounds like FRCs really provide a very broad level of services and support to different families. Can families reach out simply because they’re looking for information or resources or additional support, or do they need to have a specific need or concern? Melissa Gallagher Absolutely. Melissa Gallagher So the answer to your first question is yes, people can call, they can email, they can walk in, there’s lots of ways to connect. And even if you’re just curious to see what your family resource center looks like and what’s offered, I would encourage people to reach out. If a family is ready to connect, the network itself right now is currently building out their new website. And soon enough, this will be a great spot for people to easily search for their local Family Resource Center. And for the time being, really the easiest way to find your local family resource center is to go online and search for Family Resource Center near me and you’ll likely see a few options of centers near you along with their contact information. Emily Woodward Thank you for that and that resource that you just provided for how people can find their local FRC, which is very important. If a family were to connect with an FRC anywhere in New Hampshire, what can they expect from that experience? Are there certain things that they can really count on seeing or receiving no matter which FRC they visit? Melissa Gallagher Yeah, that’s a great question. And I love talking about that because that really is part of what I’m talking about with building that system of collaboration among all the family resource centers, is that no matter where you go in the state, if you walk into a family resource center, you’re going to see the five core services, which are really connected to those protective factors I talked about a little earlier. And the five core services are related to parenting support and education. Opportunities promoting social interaction for parents, children, youth, and other caregivers, supports for children zero to five. Information and referral services and promotion of family economic success, including access to concrete needs. So that might be that you know an unexpected bill comes up or there’s some type of financial hardship. And often a family resource center can step in to offer help or connect a person or family to other forms of help. And you know, like I said, again, going back to those five protective factors, these are the types of services that intentionally seek to build and strengthen those factors. Emily Woodward Again, just going off with what you just said about those five factors, are there services or programs that are available at some FRCs, but not others? And when a family needs a resource or service that might not be available through their local FRC, how do the centers connect and collaborate just to make sure families can access the support that they need? Melissa Gallagher Yeah, it’s true. Every Family Resource Center looks a little bit different, although as I mentioned, they’re all offering at least the five core services, but many offer programs that are unique to them and the way they sort of grew up and evolved in their own community. So for example, the Family Resource Center that I work for offers a nature-based preschool, and we have our own dedicated teen center. Not all of the Family Resource Centers offer these programs, but each are reflective of what their community needs and wants to support. Every Family Resource Center has the ability to help connect people to the services and programs that they seek. So often we suggest that the Family Resource Center may be the first place to go when you aren’t sure how to find something. And if they don’t offer it, they can help connect people and families to a place or organization that does. Emily Woodward Great, that’s a really excellent point to make for people listening to this conversation. What do you hope they walk away from this conversation understanding about family resource centers? And what do you think people may not realize about the support, resources, and connections that FRCs can provide to families? Melissa Gallagher Yeah, we really want people to know that family resource centers are for every kind of family. You know, you could be a two-parent family, you could be a single parent, maybe you’re a grandparent or a relative that’s raising children. You don’t have to meet any income or eligibility requirements, and all of our programs are offered at no or very low cost. People may not realize that we are organizations that are really built in relationship. We’re not transactional, we’re really looking to build trust and engage with families for the long term. And with that said, we’re prevention-based. So we’re trying to be a trusted source of support in a person and family’s life so that as challenges come up, we can help and offer support and prevent that challenge from turning into a crisis. Every single one of us has faced challenges in life at some point, and family resource centers are here to offer that support and connection. Emily Woodward Thank you so much, Melissa, for joining today and talking to us about FRCs and all of the services that that they provide, as well as the five factors that are a standard throughout all the various FRCs in our state. Melissa Gallagher Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciated the opportunity to talk about our great work. Emily Woodward So now that we have a better understanding of what FRCs are, let’s take a closer look at how one agency, Salem Family Resources, puts this work into action to support families in their community. Joining me today is Melissa LaRocque, Executive Director of Salem Family Resources. Welcome, Melissa. Melissa LaRocque Welcome. Hi Emily. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and share more about our agency. I’m excited to share with you about Salem Family Resources and everything that we do. For some historical background, we were founded in 1994 as Success by Six, which had a primary focus on early childhood education and school readiness, as the name would imply. We rebranded and became Salem Family Resources in 2004, and we now operate out of two locations in Salem. Both one for our early childhood learning center and the other as our family resource center. Emily Woodward Thank you so much for that background. If a family needs support, should they reach out directly to one of those two centers you just mentioned? Or what if they’re unsure what type of support they really need? Where should they start? Melissa LaRocque Absolutely. They can reach out to either side or any of us directly. All of our information is posted on our website, which gives the contact information of the director of our learning cooperative as well as our director here at 155 Main Street and myself. And so anyone reaching out can use our info at Salem Family Resources email address or they can call or text any of the numbers identified on our website for support. Emily Woodward Excellent, thank you so much. One thing I found really interesting while learning more about FRCs is that while they all share the same purpose, each FRC offers different services and supports to meet the needs of the families that they serve. Can you tell us more about how your FRC supports families and what types of services and programs you offer? Melissa LaRocque Yeah, absolutely. Well, as I just mentioned, since we were formerly success by six, we’ve always had kind of a priority towards the demographic of younger children and families. We currently have three early childhood education classrooms for two to five year olds to provide the early childhood education and care for littles to get them prepared before they go to kindergarten. The ages and stages evaluation helps parents identify the strengths and needs of their child developmentally and best support them overall and what that early childhood development is. Amongst that we also prioritize the same developmental age here at our Family Resource Center, which we call Cindy’s Place, located at the 155 Main Street. So we have playgroups every day for families, generally for infants to age five. And this really supports the connections for caregivers, our parent education, and socialization of young children. The playgroups are designed with structure to have themes and crafts, stories and snacks, and we often embed guest speakers of our community and other service providers to help support the parent education piece. The other components of our parent education is supported through workshops and various subject matters and topics that help parents with the developmental understanding of their child, other basic needs for their kids and families, and/or topics that are just recommended. Our concrete needs for families are available kind of ongoing at our site through our pantry, which has diapers and wipes, baby formula, toddler foods, and many other non-perishable food essentials and hygiene products for families. And additionally, through that family support service umbrella, our families can meet one-on-one here with us or through home visiting for various needs to help support other concrete needs, resource and referral for other services or essentials, and connection-focused groups and activities do remain a hallmark of what we’re doing here for families. Our seasonal giving is a big time of year where we support families with backpacks and back-to-school supplies, as well as Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving baskets, and winter wear and toys for the holidays. Emily Woodward Excellent. So it’s kind of all encompassing the variety of services that you provide there. I know there can be a lot of stigma around words like prevention and home visiting and parenting classes, but there’s so many different reasons really why a family might benefit from connecting with an FRC. What are some of the reasons a family might reach out to their local FRC? Melissa LaRocque Yeah, absolutely. Melissa LaRocque Yeah, families can reach out, as you just mentioned, for a variety of reasons. And some stay with us longer term and some shorter term. When we think of why families may connect with a family resource center, we always think of a way as how are we helping them build their village, so to speak, right? So for families who don’t necessarily have the luxury of having a plentiful support system, getting out of the house with a new baby can be overwhelming. There might be transportation barriers, we’ll come visit with them in their home and we’ll bring those concrete needs to them and work with them on those goals and assessing what resources could be most helpful. When parents feel connected and confident in parenting, they’re more likely to feel prepared and reduce stress and risk factors in their own homes. Families are gonna benefit from making the connections to other parents and caregivers while here, which we’ve heard anecdotally, many of these moms who attend our play spaces have become lifelong friends thereafter, and they’re organically building relationships and increasing their own support systems. Sometimes parents and families may feel stuck in a situation or moment and we can be the bridge that helped them get over that hurdle or obstacle they are facing and we’ve seen many examples anecdotally of this where you know we’ve had a family that has come to play groups regularly with their children and then circumstances changed where they had to temporarily live in a hotel. And so then having a request for some concrete tangible needs while they transitioned from their hotel to stable housing brought with it, you know, the need for bedding for the children and linens. And so we help provide that. And then additionally we got the one of the children into our early learning cooperative so that that parent could then actually regain employment, which again helps with that longer term financial sustainability. So again many reasons that people may get involved and we want to be able to hopefully meet them all wherever they’re at. Emily Woodward That’s excellent. So there are many different reasons to reach out to you. How might a family benefit from connecting with and talking to you at Salem Family Resources? Melissa LaRocque For sure. Well, there’s obviously a variety of benefits, and there’s no wrong way to connect with us. If a family is having their first child and need help navigating, getting connected with mom groups, postpartum, or mental health support, basic needs for their baby, we’re here for all of it. If families are looking to get their child enrolled into our early child education program at TLC, we’re eager to talk with them about what their needs are and how to best support the transition of that child. If a family’s lost on how to get their kids maybe to do homework or chores. We’ve helped create visuals for their home or just support in making phone calls to area agencies or other welfare offices to ensure they are connected to the right people for the support that they need. If a family is feeling isolated or not making their own connections, Playgroup is a great and free place to meet other caregivers. And we offer connection and coffee mornings too for the caregivers. and they’re if they’re looking for, you know, maybe navigating a child’s IEP or mental health services or safe sleep, nutrition, finances. We’ve had workshops and all of these topics to help a family feel more informed and just better prepared and the benefit of not having to worry about how to pay for something, you know, like a new backpack for each season or a Halloween costume or you know, the increased food bill for the holidays, we’re here to help take off those stressors at times of year that can just increase demand on people. We want to make sure that every parent who has a question, a need, or a concern is heard and supported with whatever that may be. And how that may look for them. We’ve had again many examples of stories where we’ve had parents accessing many different services from us maybe all at once for a period, then maybe things stabilize for a bit. We see them less frequently, but then they return and so there is again no wrong way, no, you know, cookie-cutter approach to how a family may get involved, stay involved, or how they could benefit from us. Emily Woodward Thank you for all that. So there’s definitely a very large selection of opportunities for families for seeking out whatever they need, whether it’s for holiday support or general or parenting, the numerous different things you just mentioned are all things that I know families would be looking for. Did you have a story that you wanted to share? Kind of a time when a family came to you looking for services and you were there able to help them with that? Melissa LaRocque Yeah, absolutely. You know, we had a family reach out to us who was really struggling. Their child had recently been diagnosed on the spectrum and just overwhelmed with some of the challenges. And so we got that mom tangibly connected to our local you know, ABA center for some services and connection groups for other parents. But additionally, while, you know kind of navigating those new waters. This was a mom who was just struggling in the home with her own children’s kind of behaviors and expectations. And so we were helping her again develop those kind of routines, consistencies for her children in her home to help with the stability, as well as helping some concrete needs of things that had been as a result of you know, some time out of work to manage this had been adding up for her. And so getting her here, getting her connected, then helping her through the holiday season for her children, those were concrete needs. But then having the peripheral support around her ongoing for her child’s diagnosis, as well as kind of improving some stability in her home with her own kids, definitely again was an opportunity where we saw again success and a good outcome for her, where she’s feeling a lot more kind of settled at this time and still reaching out occasionally, but otherwise being able to navigate those systems now for herself. Emily Woodward I know there’s so much information on the internet too and resources that are just available online, but what does an FRC really offer families that they may not be able to find over the internet? Melissa LaRocque That’s a great point, Emily, and I’ve always kind of said, like we offer the humanness and the compassion that you just can’t get from internet searches. We already have knowledgeable staff here ready and able to help people in everyday conversations and moments. Our play space is available for kids so that a parent can meet one-on-one with us without the stress of having them entertained. So you can make sure they leave with what they need and a plan for their goals and next steps. FRCs will give people connection and a village that no online resource can. And it gives people a natural place where there’s peers who are living and experiencing similar parenting journeys simultaneously with them. It gives people that place that they can talk to real other people, connect with them, find comfort, find support, and really be a part of a community above all else. Emily Woodward Well, not the whole focus of today’s discussion. I think it’s important to point out too that your agency supports families of all shapes and sizes and offers programs beyond the scope of family resource centers. Can you share some of that with our listeners? Melissa LaRocque Yeah, absolutely. A family resource center is for everyone and anyone. Moms, dads, relative caregivers, any shape and size, as you mentioned, they are welcome here. We want to make sure that people know that there is no right kind of family or wrong kind of family who should be here or comes here. All families are welcome and to get what they need. We’re looking forward to trying to actually increase programming and activities around relative and other caregivers in the year ahead. We wanna continue to make sure that people know how to access us and how to get connected. If they’re interested and to know that there’s, you know, absolutely again, no wrong family, no circumstance or other demographic that should exclude anyone from giving us a call or accessing us. Emily Woodward Thank you so much. Can you tell our listeners once again how would be the best way to access your services? Melissa LaRocque For sure. The easiest and most direct place is our website, which is Salem Family Resources dot org. People can also, again all of our contact information is on the website. They can follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We do use social media as sometimes a cast to get people’s you know attention or visibility to some of our programs. But calling, texting, emailing any one of the directors directly will immediately get them connected to exactly where they need to be for what services. They can register for our playgroups online as well as we will email all families our initial intake form just to get them started. Emily Woodward That’s great. Thank you so much, Melissa, for joining us today and taking the time to talk about your FRC, Salem Family Resources, and what they can do to support families. Melissa LaRocque Wonderful. Thank you so much, Emily, for the opportunity to be here and be able to share this and all the work that you’re doing to spread visibility on Family Resource Centers.