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PRINCIPLES OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD FAMILY
CENTERS
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Take
a holistic approach to program creation. Recognize that children,
families, and neighborhoods are interrelated and both affect
and support each other. |
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Emphasize strong
peer and profesisonal supports. |
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Empower families,
individuals, and neighborhoods by helping them to define themselves,
in order to both direct and take responsibility for their
own programs of change. |
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Focus on developing
the strengths and resources of famililes, individuals, and
neighborhoods. |
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Hire caring,
committed, well-trained, and culturally sensitive staff who
place addressing family needs as their first priority. |
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Offer a broad
spectrum of services that include those that address needs
identified by the participants themselves and are delivered
through strong working relationships between staff and participants. |
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Emphasize connecting
participants with each other and with informal sources of
support within the neighborhood. |
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Reduce financial,
geographic, psychological and scheduling barriers that may
prevent individuals from obtaining needed services. |
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Offer services
for individuals and families designed to prevent unhealthly
problems and behaviors. |
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Seek out and
develop neighborhood resources, thus creating supportive links
between people that build a sense of community among interested
individuals. |
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Focus on local
services that promote the development of good working relationships
within the family and are coherent and easy to use. |
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Tie results
to changes in families rather than steps in a process or the
number of visits and caseload size. |
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Seek to be
a focal point for neighborhood activities: a place where neighbors
come for information, education, support and socializing. |
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Represent the
population of their neighborhood and are both created and
governed by neighborhood residents. |
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