A recent evaluation of the Strengthening Families Program showed that it is meeting or exceeding national standards. Neil White, who tells the stories of Children’s Trust, details the reasons this program is having a positive impact on families and children in our state.
The success of the Strengthening Families Program can be most easily measured by the smiles of parents and children at graduation ceremonies across South Carolina.
As they receive their certificates for completing the nationally-recognized program that takes place over 14 sessions, people like Anthony Germany and his three sons genuinely express their happiness over what they have accomplished this fall along with other participants.
“We come here and it’s just like one big family,” Germany said. “We get a shared experience.”
Anthony Germany and his sons Aissacc, Adonnis and Anazair after their SFP graduation ceremony at Seven Oaks Elementary School.
The program focuses on developing positive family strengths, teaching families how to stay resilient, improving parenting skills, reducing conflict, and helping children with social skills and relationships as well as school performance.
But smiles aren’t the only gauge for what makes this program work. Children’s Trust, which has guided its implementation through a year of careful planning followed by two years of operation, recently received its evaluation from Ahearn Greene Associates, the health and human services firm that oversees SFP nationally.
Children’s Trust has guided the startup and expansion of SFP in the Palmetto State from four initial sites in early 2014 to the 10 partners now running the program in 12 counties. Children’s Trust is now working to place the program in more counties across the state.
All current sites met or exceeded national standards for the manner in which they delivered the program with measures that included the level of staff training and the degree to which the curriculum was followed with precision. The evaluation also measured changes in 15 areas of family life. In each of these areas, parents reported significant improvements in positive parenting skills, family experiences, and child behaviors.
Jeanie Ahearn Greene, executive director of the consulting firm and the authorized source for fidelity evaluation of SFP, marveled at how efficiently Children’s Trust got the program up and running in this state.
“What’s significant is that you have 10 viable sites within 18 months,” Ahearn Greene said. “They’re consistently viable, and they all have full capacity. It’s not unusual to take two to three years to get three or four sites going. The reason you can say this program is running great (in South Carolina) is that you’ve got 10 sites that are all very different and you’ve got retention at all of them. It means you’re following (the program) with fidelity and people are learning the skills and reaching the outcomes, but you’re also accommodating the families if you have to bend and be flexible.”
Ahearn Greene also commended the preparation done before the program’s launch, which included finding strong agency partners that brought in capable personnel. She credited the Children’s Trust SFP coordinators, Karen Dukes-Smith and Sherri Caldwell, for their touch in developing each site while working collaboratively with the organizations and participating families at every site.
Before a recent site visit in Barnwell County, Ahearn Greene spoke of the unique connection that Dukes-Smith and Caldwell have made with the various partners.
“When we walk into the site tonight, all the families are going to know Sherri and be excited to see her. And she’s going to know their names. Yet she is not compromised in any way in terms of holding the line and holding them to the highest standards,” Ahearn Greene said. “There’s a bond there, and they want to please and reach that bar because they know Sherri and Karen only have their best interests at heart. Your staff wants these families to succeed.”
SFP coordinator Karen Dukes-Smith talks about the program at the 2015 Prevention Conference hosted by Children’s Trust.
Parents and their children participate both separately and together in the sessions, which always begin with a family meal and typically last 2½ hours. The program, which focuses on children age six through 11, has existed for nearly 20 years while being conducted in family and youth service agency settings, community centers, schools and churches.
The spring and fall sessions in the program meet once each week for 14 weeks, while the summer session will meet twice each week for seven weeks. Participants who successfully complete the program graduate in a celebratory, uplifting style. Typically, around 10 families will participate at each site. The fall graduation ceremonies wrapped up this week.
Rebecca Carney, director of community programs at Growing Home Southeast, a regional agency that focuses on an array of specialized services to help at-risk children and families, enthusiastically endorses the program’s curriculum after watching it administered over the last two years at the Seven Oaks Elementary School site.
“I love that this is not a mandated program. We’re not telling people how to parent. That’s not what it’s about,” Carney said. “It’s truly strengthening families. I love that part. They come not knowing what to expect the first time or second time, and then this cohesion takes place. From what I’m seen from our group (of participants), families don’t feel judged. We really try to embrace them. We’re just sharing knowledge. In so much of the work we do, people come to us for negative reasons. This is the exact opposite. All we’re encouraged to do is bring out the strengths and point those things out to the families.”
Lee Porter, chief program officer at Children’s Trust, was pleased the evaluation confirmed what he has viewed as the steady development of the program over the last two years. While Porter appreciates the high marks, he’s more excited for what it means for families across the state.
“With SFP, we have an effective synergy of what is known as an ‘evidence-based program’ with an implementation and feedback process that assures the program is delivered the way it was designed, tested, and proven,” Porter said. “This gives us great confidence that South Carolina families involved in SFP are going to become stronger, more stable, and more able to respond in a healthy manner to the normal ups and downs of family life.”
Germany and his sons Aissacc, 8, Adonnis, 7, and Anazair, 4, have found greater strength as a family after attending every session this fall at the Growing Home Southeast site. He has embraced the lessons and wished that more dads would come through the program.
“You already have bonded with your child, but there are more things you can do – simple things that you don’t realize that you don’t do and your child appreciates,” Germany said. “I might tell him to bring me a glass of water, and he brings it back but I don’t say anything. If I go, ‘Hey, thank you, little man,’ it lights him up. He really smiles. Little kids want to feel appreciated, and sometimes we forget that.”
He believes the reinforcement and support provided by SFP can lift him and his sons as they go through life together.
“I always told them that I love them. Little things I did, the program told me I’m right,” he said. “I get up every day and tell I love them. Before they go to sleep, I let them know I love them. I praise them for everything they do. This is a very good program.”
SFP Providers
- CASA Family Systems, Orangeburg and Bamberg counties
- Children’s Place, Aiken and Barnwell counties
- City Year-Columbia, Richland County
- Communities in Schools, Greenville County
- Dickerson Children’s Advocacy Center, Lexington County
- FamilyCorps, Charleston County
- Growing Home Southeast, Lexington and Richland counties
- Hope Haven of the Lowcountry, Beaufort and Jasper counties
- Lee County First Steps, Lee and Darlington counties
- S.C. Specialized Alternatives for Families and Youth, Greenville County
