About Us |
Detailed information on your role |
Families and Schools Together® is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping your community build protective factors around kids.
We produce and distribute evidence-based, parent involvement programs and prevention/intervention programs that teach parents how to become empowered and show them how to empower their children to succeed. Our mission is to help your community create barriers to the risks kids face by creating a strong family accountability infrastructure, using a collaborative framework of local support.
We distribute a number of award-winning after-school programs, including the widely-adopted, SAMHSA model program called FAST™. Our models use low-cost, proven methods based on decades of research, to help restore the ability of participating families to prevent and stop unhealthy behaviors and to provide leadership so kids can reach their potential.
About This Website
This web site is made available to help you get to know Families and Schools Together, and to help you understand how we add value to your school and community. In these pages, you can find out all about us, our programs, and how we go about protecting the hearts and minds of precious children. Every day, people use the resources in this site to begin a family support program. Thank you for looking into our programs. For more information, please contact us at 888-629-2481.
Detailed Information On Your Role
We work with all families in all regions and social settings to help you succeed as a parent. We believe you are the best chance for your child to grow and thrive, and we want to empower you and connect you with your school and local resources.
Our mission is to help you navigate you children's growth years and avoid or resolve the problems that all parents face. If you have special concerns, we can help connect you to the services that can help you care for your family's needs.
You'd be surprised at the resources that are available to help you. Let us show you a better way to keep your kids safe.
Our unique, award-winning programs can help you regardless of whether you live in suburban America, an urban community, or in rural community. We give you the skills and confidence you need to improve the way your family operates so you can empower your children to grow and succeed. We have programs for babies, pre-K, elementary ages, middle school and older teens. Each age and grade level in school presents unique challenges to you and to your child's ability to do well in school and avoid high-risk choices.
Every family has unique needs, but nearly all parents share the same concerns about education, family skills, family communication, school attendance, grades, peer influence, drugs, teen pregnancy, and crime.
influences that can either help or detract from your ability to create harmony and strength in your family. We've discovered key factors that can make the difference between kids who succeed in school and kids who do not. We believe relative academic performance is the most important measure of how well these factors are working in your life. But even kids with good grades can get into trouble, so we go beyond grades and into the real causes of positive and negative behaviors. With our programs, you can build a protective layer around your children and form a strong relationship with them. We want to empower you and help you succeed as a parent. You'd be surprised at the many resources and methods that are available to help you. Let us show you a better way to keep your kids safe, healthy and wise. Thank you for looking into our programs. For more information about our organization, please contact us at 888-629-2481.
Families & Schools Together Canada Graduate, Mississauga, Ontario
We want schools to be better able to focus on their educational mission. This is why we provide only non-curricular parental involvement programs that give kids a boost so they become teachable and accountable, while connecting parents to the school. If you define "parent involvement" as we do, in terms of parent empowerment over the decisions their kids make in school and in life, then you will see our programs as the ultimate parent involvement tool.
At Families and Schools Together, we support the mission of schools by providing Parent Involvement initiatives that go well beyond workshops and volunteer efforts. We want all kids to have a chance to
Our programs produce the following outcomes:
- Improved academic competence and performance of participating students and siblings
- Improved behavior, social skills and attention span of participant students and siblings
- Reduced problem behaviors, such as aggression, anxiety, and depression affecting classroom and social interaction
- Increased parent involvement with respect to a child's performance, teacher relationships, and policy cooperation
Teachers routinely report significant changes in participant student's school effort and grades.
deep parental guidance. Ours is not "yet another..." parenting skills model. We distribute school-supported, universal/ preventive programs as well as early intervention systems that improve family functioning and allow parents to seek the support they need to prevent risky and nonproductive childhood behaviors, and to correct barriers to learning.
Teachers and principals adore FAST and FAME because we help them transform the climate of a school through powerful connections within and between families.
teachers and school administrators, and many become volunteers and problem solvers.
Educators tell us they like our programs because they provide more impact for each dollar spent, and because we provide complete services to assure each program's success. We urge you to contact us for more information about how Families and Schools Together can work in your community to help you generate consistent scholastic performance, to reduce delinquency and improve parent-child-school relationships.
Kalen Kitagawa, Hawaii Department of Education
Principal, Hodgkins Elementary, Hodgkins IL
Jerry Johnson, School Principal
The reason local juvenile justice professionals have always stood behind our programs is that we have a long history of working with local police, as well as with state and national justice department agencies to help schools and service providers improve the way parents protect and guide their kids. We do this by providing structured learning programs, based on building interpersonal relationships with police, schools and community service providers. Our programs provide prevention and early intervention in a variety of social and risk settings. We employ non-threatening, permission-based, experiential learning that empowers parents and connects them to you while they take responsibility for being the primary protective agents for their kids.
Our programs produce the following outcomes:
- Decreased conflict with local police and law enforcement matters
- Increased respect for police officers and the justice system
- Reduced conflict in the home, and reduced aggressive behaviors by kids
- Increased parent awareness, involvement, and leadership in the community
- Reduction of juvenile delinquency and gang involvement
- Reduced substance abuse problems in schools and neighborhoods
Our programs reduce parent and child stress, and in-home violence. They help kids control impulses and reduce exposure to aggression.
a series of direct, primary factors that expose parents and kids to risk factors that are present in today's society. We show parents and guardians how to regain personal accountability, which leads to improved academic performance and better decisions by kids and families.
Nobody has a guaranteed solution to prevent juvenile crime. But families who graduate from our programs typically show a remarkable reduction in risk factors and tend to form positive relationships with the law enforcement community.
Dr Stanley F Yolles, Director, National Institute of Mental Health (on alienation as a major cause of juvenile substance abuse)
community to reduce juvenile crime and increase parental cooperation with local police. Thank you for looking into our programs. For more information, please contact us at 888-629-2481.
SRO's
Many of our middle school and high school programs work in cooperation with SRO partners.
Gang Resistance and Redirection
We develop intensive multi-family processes that work with alternative approaches to anti-gang activities for elementary and middle schools. We complement and aggressively collaborate national and community redirection programs such as G.R.E.A.T. and D.A.R.T.
Community Outreach and COPS support
Our programs give outreach coordinators a local provider resource to refer families, so kids and adults can form positive police and community relationships.
Many of our most committed supporters are professionals in the fields of mental health, and AODA. The reason is simple: Nowhere else can you find a program that can reach parents and children at the local level in a way that changes behaviors and values at a cost that allows providers to make a difference in people's lives. Our programs are all based on cognitive and development science, and many have been reviewed in multiple RCT's.
We help doctors, engineers, trades people, businesspeople, moms, farm workers, office workers, and production workers...any parent from any walk of life. Our unique programs can help your clients regardless of whether you live in an inner-city or a rural community. We've successfully replicated our models across many cultural segments, in nearly every state, in numerous Indian nations, and in several international communities.
People don't want to be told what they need; they must be empowered to evaluate circumstances and make decisions.
discover they need additional help or support that you can provide. Our programs don't simply lecture or expose individuals to helpful services. We take participants though a complete process that changes behaviors within the family and between parents and providers.
problems. We provide the blueprint and catalyst for cooperation between your organization and the other social resources that impact upon the lives of parents and children. Thank you for looking into our programs. Please contact us to find out why our unique program has been so successful.
If your local agency provides resources to help kids function better and focus on school, then we'd love to work with you. Many of our clients are community service agencies that wish to improve collaboration at the local level, for the sake of the children. Too
If your community is like most, your local resources must be carefully allocated to programs that work. Please review the science and evidence behind our approach, and learn why it is the best investment you can make in solving local problems and improving
Our award-winning programs are designed to provide a way for relevant support entities to collaborate in serving specific needs of parents and their children.
families to achieve specific goals. The immediate goal is on academic performance, but the complete mission is to help parents connect with their kids and harness the power of community resources to redirect childhood behaviors, away from high-risk choices, and toward achievement.
Together can work along with your CBO's mission to improve lives and protect kids. Please call us at 888-629-2481
Counselor, YMCA Peel, Ontario Youth Substance Abuse Program
Your community faces many challenges that it seems were not present a generation ago. Juvenile crime is rising and kids are not always getting the guidance they need to stay safe, drug-free and in school. The obstacles are enormous, but there are ways to beat the cycle of delinquency and reduce
That's where we can help. For over twenty years programs like our award-winning model program, FAST™ have helped parents and schools act as a barrier to the dangers faced by many communities. Our programs have touched the lives of many families and turned lives around. We act like a silent
We provide the framework that builds family accountability and connects parents to their children's schools and community supports.
a social perspective. This is because we see the cumulative effects of unwise and unhealthy personal behaviors and its impact on our culture and our country.
It is appropriate to address the enormous problems kids face from a leadership perspective. However, policy measures have their limits. Ultimately, it is the individual choices made by kids and their parents that make the difference between a safe and harmonious place to live, and a threatened community. If you want to make a significant change in personal behaviors, you must have a strong local support network dedicated to building protective factors around your community's children.
drivers that protect children. Our programs assist community leaders by empowering and coaching parents.
The benefits include:
- Leadership assistance
- Community involvement
- Improved collaboration
- Measurable outcomes
- Compelling success stories
- Increased social capital
Please contact us to help your community create an action plan.
There are many models in the marketplace of ideas that profess to improve parenting, family values, or childhood academic performance. All of these programs are well meaning, but most are not
One of the key challenges in funding programs for kids is to find models that can be effectively replicated nationally, which work in all socio-economic and cultural segments, and which
true change in people's behaviors. Still others are nationally branded, but they fail to provide local leadership and collaboration, and they are not flexible enough to meet local needs.
The programs we develop are thorough but cost-effective. These award-winning models provide a unique opportunity for local, state, and national funders to spread costs across several organizations, including public and private financial resources. We provide the research, the engagement structure, the delivery process, and quality assurance. Most importantly, we enable local service providers to work interdependently and focus on specific needs of children.
in controlled studies, as well as in the marketplace. The programs we create are popular with consumers and provide tangible benefits to parents, children, and schools. We provide preventive and early intervention programs that go well beyond lectures, self-learning, and first-contact. We truly connect families to the resources they need to improve the performance of their kids, or to get the help they need.
We encourage you to get in touch with us to learn how we can lower your funding risks and increase your portfolio of recommended programs.