Families First Community Grant Partners

A Step Ahead of Middle Tennessee improves economic and family stability for low-income women and families in 18 counties through free reproductive health education and access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARC). There is no better way to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies than to provide education to our community and free access to the most effective, yet most costly, forms of contraception. Nearly 75% of our clients are unwed and mothers, thus our work prevents unwed pregnancies for many Families First recipients. Save the Children Federation, Inc. Through internal programming and collaboration with community partners, YWCA NETN and SWVA has identified a diverse set of resources that will further empower our organization to deliver services, utilizing a family-led approach that aligns with multiple TANF purposes. Utilizing the two generational approach, the YWCA can provide assistance to needy families so that children are cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives. It plans to accomplish these goals by increasing operational hours, developing a Family Navigator Program that will provide direct family services, development of a Family Hotline to increase access to assistance and support for families, community-building activities for parents and children, workforce development assistance for children and parents, family support groups, and the creation of the Family University Program of resources. Davidson and surrounding counties For 60 years, Girls Inc. of Chattanooga (Girls Inc.) has worked directly with over 28,000 girls and families who meet and/or exceed Tennessee’s low-income eligibility criteria, the State and City’s most vulnerable and under resourced communities. Girls and families from these communities have been active participants in our in-school, after-school and seasonal day camps offered across the City of Chattanooga (Hamilton County). Through a varied, holistic and comprehensive programming approach, the Girls Inc. experience addresses 2-gen outcomes of economic support, education, health and well-being and social capital. Wesley House Community Center Childhelp, Inc. dba Childhelp Tennessee Families Free, Inc Anderson, Blount, Campbell, Claiborne, Cocke, Grainger, Hamblen, Jefferson, Knox, Loudon, Morgan, Roane, Union, Scott, Sevier Center for Family Development Cocke Daughters of Zion promotes equity and opportunity for all, through education and community involvement and by creating or implementing initiatives and programs that promote community lift up, affordable housing, livable wages, pay equity, healthy lifestyles, and work life balance. The focus of the program will be to provide training opportunities to obtain certification in areas such as entrepreneurship and nursing assistant with the goals of increasing earned income and financial empowerment. All 95 Advanced Therapy Solutions dba Allied Behavioral Health Solutions Carter, Greene, Johnson, Sullivan, Unicoi, Washington Rural Resources, Inc. Family Center, Inc. Dismas, Inc Pathway to Persevere is a technology-focused career preparation and job placement program provided by Persevere, in collaboration with a network of community, regional and state partners. The program provides computer coding instruction leading to certification, career readiness and life skills instruction, job placement, wraparound supportive services, and career support and follow up. It is designed to help participants build a career (not just get a job) so they can move beyond public assistance and use their newly acquired skills to truly thrive as families. A Step Ahead Chattanooga Anderson, Blount, Loudon, Knox Crockett, Fayette, Hardeman, Haywood, Lauderdale, Madison, Tipton Workforce Midsouth Inc Through the Mid-South Youth Opportunity Center, WMS seeks to more deeply impact the Greater Memphis region by expanding access to resources and connecting the disconnected throughout our communities. The Mid-South Youth Opportunity Center (MYOC) seeks to serve as the point of intervention in the hopes of connecting young adults to impactful sufficiency and a break in the cycle of poverty. This project will incorporate our guiding principles of collaboration and innovation by creatively weaving both WIOA and TANF funding for the most impactful system outcomes. Bledsoe, Bradley, Franklin, Grundy, Hamilton, Marion, McMinn, Meigs, Polk, Rhea, Sequatchie Sullivan Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley (BGCTNV) is expanding the Member Emotional and Social Health (MESH) Program to offer increased access to mental health support for youth and family members. The purpose of the MESH Program is designed to promote positive social and emotional skill development, address Club youth mental health needs, and mitigate the effects of toxic stress and childhood trauma in the youth across the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley. Bedford, Cannon, Cheatham, Davidson, DeKalb, Dickson, Hickman, Macon, Marshall, Maury, Montgomery, Putnam, Robertson, Rutherford, Smith, Sumner, Trousdale, Williamson, Wilson Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee Hope House Day Care Center Inc. Signal Centers will launch a program called Work Ready! to support TANF eligible parents, who have a high school education or HiSET, to gain paid internships and postsecondary education or training that will result in permanent employment in the licensed child care industry. The program would recruit TANF eligible parents to participate in a nine-month paid internship in an early childhood classroom while concurrently enrolling in postsecondary academic coursework or training in Early Childhood Education. Blount, Knox Wesley House Community Center will work with families of the historically under-resourced communities of Mechanicsville, Lonsdale, and Beaumont. Through a holistic approach of affordable, accessible, and quality childcare services, family engagement, a free community store, and mobile food pantry, together it will address the TANF purposes to: 1. Provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives; 2. End the dependence of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage. YWCA Knoxville and the Tennessee Valley's project supports TANF Purpose 2, ending dependence of parents in need by promoting job preparation and work. The project will hire a full-time Project Coordinator to recruit eligible participants, assess their needs, establish goals, provide tangible support to relieve short-term problems, and help remove barriers so participants can successfully seek, obtain, and maintain living-wage employment. Cocke County High School Daughters of Zion All Women's Bible College Goodwill Industries—Knoxville, Inc.’s Good Prospects program will support the TANF purpose of Economic Support: Increasing Economic Status & Stability. Utilizing it's four primary workforce development centers, located in Knoxville (2), Morristown and Oak Ridge it will provide vocational training, comprehensive case management and employment supports to individuals throughout a fifteen county service delivery area. Good Prospects will utilize evidenced-based practices and innovative service delivery and design in alignment with it's mission of changing lives and strengthening families by helping people reach their full potential through community-relevant job training, work experiences and career services. The Y on Wheels program is a year-round, mobile, modified version of YMCA Afterschool for under-resourced neighborhoods, currently seeing transformative impact in youth and parents/guardians. Families encountering transportation barriers and youth who lack afterschool supervision can engage in sports, group games, arts/crafts, and science activities; as well as family events and guardian/parenting classes with qualified youth-services-trained YMCA counselors. As a connection to the three TANF purposes identified, the Y and community partners utilize a five-pronged approach: (1) parent and youth classes/workshops, (2) family engagement events, (3) access to household resources, (4) Reach and Rise Mentoring Program, and (5) Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curricula. A Step Ahead Chattanooga’s (ASAC) Plan Ahead Program operates specifically to inform families and service providers about reversible birth control as a viable tool in successful life planning. The Plan Ahead Program focuses on Tennessee counties that have the highest percentage (25-30%) of women aged 20-44, with incomes less than 138% of the federal poverty level, who need publicly funded contraceptive services. Shelby (with emphasis on 38126, 38106, and 38109) A Step Ahead Foundation of East Tennessee (ASAFET) provides marginalized women with the economic, physical, and psychosocial resources and support to access the most effective form of birth control, Long-Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC), at no cost to them. ASAFET is committed to creating access to LARC to provide all women with the step ahead they need to advance in their careers, pursue education, and have control of their reproductive futures. The Family Wellbeing Program (FWP) serves low-income families in Davidson County and surrounding areas by providing food assistance, through a normal shopping experience, and wraparound services including music therapy, mental health counseling, financial planning, legal and health clinics, medication management, nutrition education/food demonstrations, and exercise programs. The FWP will expand its reach in the community by adding a workforce development program, youth development program, and additional programming to reduce the instance of unplanned pregnancies. The Generations Stronger program supports families with children under age 18 who are affected by the complex impact of socioeconomic deficits with a focus on harm reduction for families impacted by involvement in the justice system. Families have access to specific support and interventions addressing; income, education, employment, housing, health, mental health and trauma treatment. Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Tennessee Jefferson Dismas House takes applications from men releasing from state prisons and county jails throughout Tennessee. Dismas House provides a reentry program that improves the economic status and stability of returning citizens, specifically the non-custodial parent (NCP), and through programming they increase their financial empowerment and begin the process of providing support to their family. Grant funds will help improve the skills and abilities of the NCP by adding parenting and co-parenting skills classes, an additional case manager, and additional lifestyle improvement classes. The Leader in Me (LiM) school improvement model influences leadership, culture, and academics for high school students by using the See-Do-Get Cycle. Leader in Me Core workshops are facilitated during the first three years of implementation to provide consistent LiM professional development creating sustainable change. Leader in Me creates a culture led by students who are encouraged to find their voice and develop critical skills to help them successfully navigate college, career, and life breaking the cycle of poverty for our families. Davidson, Knox, Montgomery, Rutherford Cheatham, Dickson, Franklin, Lawrence, Jefferson, Scott, Clay, Cocke, Putnam, Sevier, Tipton, Weakley Signal Centers, Inc As part of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s (TBI) Dangerous Drugs Task Force (TDDTF), the Tennessee Alliance for Drug Endangered Children (TADEC) addresses the needs of children that live or are exposed to substance use, abuse, and/or manufacturing by bringing together a variety of disciplines from all over the state to leverage resources to ensure children are provided the services needed to be safe, happy, and healthy and grow into citizens engaged in their families and communities. Ancillary to this goal, the TADEC also works to connect parents and caregivers to services to work toward or keep them on a path to healthy, productive lifestyles with peaceful homes and perspicacious parenting. Bedford, Coffee, Giles, Hickman, Lawrence, Lewis, Lincoln, Marshall, Maury, Moore, Perry, Wayne Greene The Launch Point initiative partners with local industry in Rutherford County to help families move to self-sufficiency by offering wraparound services to remove barriers to families obtaining and maintaining living wage employment. This model would use Success Coaches embedded within local industry and focus on individual assistance by providing assistance for childcare, housing, mental health services, medical services, transportation, and other basic needs. This program will work hand in hand with local employers to not only form a safety net in times of crisis, but also to offer financial empowerment resources and connections to post-secondary education to help families thrive. YWCA Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia dba YWCA NETN and SWVA Eagle's Nest provides family centered workshops and services in individual and group settings (in-person and virtually) utilizing an evidence-based curriculum, recognized by SAMHSA along with Individual/Group/Family Therapy and Psychodrama (Social Family Case Studies - Simulations). In addition, parenting classes and substance abuse services are provided. Eagles Nest - Parenting Socially teaches parents of children and adolescents culturally competent parenting skills in an entertaining, efficient manner that strengthens the family unit by assisting families so that children can be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives. Clay, Cocke, Crockett, Fentress, Greene, Grundy, Haywood, Lauderdale, Morgan, Perry, and Tipton All 95 counties Families Free is a community resource for system-involved individuals, and Families Free would like to add an additional layer of intervention by creating a space where it can foster initiative and provide support. This program will be an enhancement of the current treatment, parenting, and co-occurring services that the client is already receiving at Families Free. This new programming will focus on the 2-gen approach by looking directly at the children’s goals and parental attunement to the needs of the child while the parents are achieving their own goals of sobriety, employment, and housing. YWCA Knoxville and the Tennessee Valley Knox UpRise Nashville Anderson, Blount, Campbell, Claiborne, Cocke, Grainger, Hamblen, Jefferson, Knox, Loudon, Monroe, Morgan, Roane, Scott, Sevier, Union Hawkins, Sullivan, Washington Cannon, Rutherford Knowledge Quest Eagle's Nest of Gastonia Goodwill Industries--Knoxville, Inc. Childhelp seeks to re-imagine and implement a relative care service program as a pilot for the State of Tennessee helping to reduce abuse, neglect, mental stressors and ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) resulting in better educational, emotional, mental and physical health. Nashvillians experiencing poverty are equipped with career training, a short-term postsecondary education and placed in a career job with upward mobility with the goal of financial self-sufficiency. Fayette, Lauderdale, Shelby, Tipton New Life Center Knox United Way of the Mid-South YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee Hamilton Greater Kingsport Family YMCA Knowledge Quest (KQ) will implement it's Two-Generational programming methodology inclusive of case management services, mental and physical health supports, and family engagement activities toward reducing family dependency on government benefits by promoting family wellbeing, job preparation, work and marriage. Resilient Families is a long-term case management program that seeks to support and empower low income families in obtaining increased income, economic security, education, health and well-being, self-sufficiency and social capital through a Two-Generation, family-centered approach. Family Coaches assist families in identifying and removing barriers in order for them to meet their goals, connecting them to community resources, and providing opportunities for families to engage in programming that promotes and supports their family directed goals. Knoxville Leadership Foundation (KLF), operates Bridging the Gap, a new care coordination initiative to establish centralized wraparound services and resource hub for low-income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)-eligible families. Over 24-months, its System Navigators and evidence-based professional mental health services will form relationships with participants to build physical, emotional, financial, and social assets resulting in improved self-sufficiency, aligned with TDHS’s interests to reduce poverty, decrease system dependency, and create upward mobility through effective educational, health, economic, and social opportunity pathways. UWMS will expand and enhance Driving The Dream, an evidence-based, coordinated system of care through which low-income families are seamlessly connected to a comprehensive network of services which, when delivered in tandem, move families to greater economic security. By facilitating, coordinating and “driving” access to those family-determined services, DTD aligns with a key TANF objective; ending the dependence of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage. Blount, Sevier, Cocke, Knox, Anderson, Campbell, Claibourne, Hancock, Marion, Hamilton, Bradley, Davidson, Sumner, Williamson, Cheatham, Dickson, Hickman, Montgomery, Houston, Stewart, Rutherford, Cannon, Greene, Washington, Union, Carter, Johnson, Lauderdale, Tipton, Shelby, Fayette, Wilson, Sullivan, Hawkins, Wayne, Hardin, McNairy, Chester, Decatur, Perry, Humphreys, Benton United Way of Rutherford and Cannon Counties Shelby Knoxville Leadership Foundation Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Youth Villages, Inc. Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley Hamilton County Coalition The Center for family Development provides outreach, case management, and referral services to targeted Connecting Generations Program families in our 12-counties, focusing the first year on Wayne, Perry, Lawrence and Giles counties. Through the Families First Community Grant funding Connecting Generations Program would be able to increase it's caregiving families’ linkage to needed resources such as job readiness training, affordable and improved housing, childcare and other caregiver/parenting resources. The Farm & Food Teen Training Program engages teens (ages 12-18) and their families in a 2Gen approach to use practical food and nutritional skills (including gardening, raising livestock, and cooking) to increase intergenerational self-sufficiency, family cohesion, and offer comprehensive services that support full potential for success. BBBS-ETN’s Families 1st (F1) Project will mitigate adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and factors like poverty and health that marginalize low-income families through professionally-supported one-to-one mentoring to low-income East Tennessee youth, ages 6-23, using Big Brothers Big Sisters evidence-based model combined with family case supports. Belmont University The New Life Center will provide comprehensive services including parenting education, relationship building, life skills training, employment and educational resources, risk reduction case management, and Financial Empowerment Center counseling along with mentoring in order to encourage successful fatherhood/parenting, and maximize the physical, emotional and academic well-being of their children. It will primarily use the Strengthening Families Curriculum, along with other evidence based/informed curricula to achieve the program outcomes. Youth Villages proposes two types of services, intensive in-home services and transition-age youth services, both of which directly relate to the first two goals of TANF. These programs will work with parents to set goals and build skills related to meeting their family's basic needs, including assessing employment, education, transportation, and other areas to help parents get on the path to long-term self-sufficiency. Persevere Hamilton Since 1898, YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee has helped families increase their economic security through safety, social support, education, and employment opportunities. The YWCA strengthens the whole family through the following five programs: The Weaver Domestic Violence Center. AMEND Together, The Family Learning Center, Dress for Success, and Girls Inc. A Step Ahead Foundation of East Tennessee The Salvation Army of Tennessee Hamilton County’s Family Care Program will support the TANF’s purposes of providing assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their homes or in the homes of relatives and ending the dependence of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage. The program will assist with care management including outreach assistance and youth/child support services. These services will include referral and access treatment and recovery services within 48 hours, life skills support including parenting classes, financial management, and stress management, as well as, pro-social youth group opportunities. Save the Children’s Early Education Continuum strengthens families by enhancing child development and building the five protective factors associated with lower likelihood of negative outcomes. Aligned with the TANF purpose to assist families in caring for their children in their own homes, our programs use a whole-family approach to service delivery by providing parents and caregivers with the tools and knowledge to support their children’s development and education, while also promoting children’s skill development. By focusing on child development and education (and reading proficiency in particular), this continuum lays a strong foundation for children’s school and later success. Partnership for Families, Children, and Adults Girls Inc. of Chattanooga Davidson A Step Ahead Foundation of Middle Tennessee This program will provide daycare and preschool services for children affected by HIV and wraparound services for their families including therapeutic services, housing support, food pantry, victim services, medical care linkage and referrals to any other needed resources. The families we serve face immense challenges to leading a long and healthy life with a chronic disease, because of the many obstacles of living in poverty. Therefore,Hope House’s services focus on education, health and well-being, economic stability, and healthy relationships for families. Benton, Carroll, Chester, Crockett, Decatur, Dyer, Fayette, Gibson, Hardeman, Hardin, Haywood, Henderson, Henry, Lake, Lauderdale, Madison, McNairy, Obion, Shelby, Tipton, Weakley The Family Center’s Families Together program will increase program delivery to serve 160+ families annually more intensively, with a strong focus on families with an incarcerated parent who anticipate re-entry into the family and community. It will implement intensive family coaching; a case-management approach to help parents/children navigate challenges prior to and upon reunification; assist adults with reentry back into homes, employment, and the general community; provide focused workshops and other opportunities/events to increase connections between clients (enhancing their ability to become advocates and ambassadors, create self-sufficiency, and build social capital); and a Peer Mentor program to build support, peer coaching, and provide leadership opportunities for parents. Jefferson County Connects will develop a 4 pathway approach to support Jefferson County's children and families. Pathways include t a) sustain a current school-based behavioral health liaison program b) develop an early childhood liaison position to support Head Start/ Early Head Start and licensed childcare providers c) establish the Jefferson County Connects Collective Impact Project and d) development and use of central referral for community resources to decrease use of mobile crisis and promote family cohesion and community engagement. Anderson, Blount, Carter, Hawkins, Knox, Sevier, Sullivan, Washington The Salvation Army (TSA) programs respond with emergency financial assistance, holiday assistance, youth educational programs, youth camp programs, services to displaced persons, food security, and faith-based communities. TSA's current 2Gen initiative, in partnership with the 2020 2Gen TN Grant in East and West TN, uses staff to engage clients through an event, encounter, or other meeting, and assesses/documents their individual family needs. They then empower individuals and families by establishing SMART goals related to economic stability, education advancement, improved health and wellbeing or social capital. Achievement of goals equips individuals and families to live and thrive independently in community.