Support FST Stimulus Package
Dear Friends of FAST:
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
We are writing this letter to ask you to support getting FAST to 300,000 children in the US, including in your own community. We are not asking for a donation, but for a bit of your time and your connections to support our efforts. Over the 20 years, many of your FAST programs have experienced fiscal challenges which compromised your ability to maintain the personnel needed to operate the multi-family groups. Your efforts could help change that.
Our national non-profit FAST organization is always looking for ways to promote your good work and support your FAST programs throughout the nation. To that end, we want to ask you to help us make a proposal to the new federal administration. We propose that they create jobs for implementing FAST in 1000 schools in the upcoming economic stimulus package that is currently being developed. (see www.familiesandschools.org)
Dr. Lynn McDonald (FAST program founder) with a Board Member Dianne Greenley, and I developed a proposal summary below (and a more detailed proposal, click here for the FST Stimulus Package Documents) for inclusion in the job creations for the social infrastructure. The goals are FAST goals: to increase educational outcomes and support and empower parent networks and parent involvement, but also creating jobs for parents to run FAST. This proposal would employ up to 20 parents as full time FAST team members per school to do outreach to all children and FAST for all children. This is a dream which only 50 schools have done to date. This is dream which many FAST parent graduates have asked for us to pursue, and this is our chance to do so. We propose 1000 schools in the US to be staffed to run FAST, with program related costs. Training and evaluation included.
We appeal to you to help us move this agenda forward. You can help!!! Share this email, and this link with others, and show your support for the FAST program. If you know anyone in your local congressional delegation, their staff, or anyone on the transition team, please contact them to support our proposal by forwarding them this information so that we can bring this information to the attention of politicians in order to include FAST in the stimulus package and create 20,000 jobs for parents and connect parents and children to their schools and communities.
Please contact me at pdavenport@familiesandschools.org or 608-213-9557 if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Pat Davenport, CEO
Families and Schools Together Inc. (non-profit)
2801 International Lane, Suite 212
Madison, WI 53704
608-213-9557
Fax: 608-663-2336
pdavenport@familiesandschools.org
Investing in Social Infrastructure
Families And Schools Together (FAST) and the Economic Stimulus Package
- We propose a $1 billion investment in the Families And Schools Together (FAST) program as part of the economic stimulus package. This funding would directly generate 22,000 jobs across 1000 schools and serves 100,000 families with 1.2 million family members.
- Evaluations of 1900 FAST implementations across 48 states and 8 countries have found that FAST significantly increases parent involvement in schools; improves child school performance and reduces delinquency; increases social capital among parents; and leads to improved child-parent and student-teacher interaction by building protective factors for children and families.
- FAST can absorb funding and scale up rapidly through its existing network of 300 certified FAST trainers nationwide. This network can train staff and launch new FAST sites at a rate of 125 per quarter, meaning that all 1000 schools can be active within two years of the initiative’s launch.
- At its heart, FAST is based on the principle that every parent loves their child. FAST works to empower parents to help their children succeed by enabling positive interactions with their children, building relationships with other parents, and connecting parents to the broader community through local schools.
- An evidence-based program, FAST brings multi-family groups to structured weekly gatherings at schools in a two-month program that ends with a graduation ceremony. Unusually high among family-based programs, FAST has a retention rate of 80% -- across diverse sites including inner-city, suburban, and rural schools, Indian reservations, and among immigrant populations and in multiple languages.
- FAST has been cited as an evidence-based model by independent federal bodies and peerreview organizations including the DHHS Center for Mental Health Services; DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justices and Delinquency Prevention; the Harvard School of Education; the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention; and the U.S. Department of Education. FAST is the subject of a large body of peer-reviewed published social science research documenting its statistically significant impact on children, parents, and schools.
