In order to meet the diverse and changing service needs of families and communities, Growing Home Southeast has developed and incorporated various community-based programs into its array of services. Services are designed to support and strengthen families.
Community Services
The programs are designed to:
- keep children safe and avoid both unnecessary removal and unnecessarily long separations from family in out-of-home care,
- promote family as the first priority permanency option for children,
- focus on the family as a whole; instead of services focusing on family deficits or dysfunctions, family strengths are identified, enhanced, and respected,
- work with families as partners in identifying and meeting needs,
- be delivered in a way that respects cultural and community differences, are easily accessible and convenient for parents’ schedules, and are delivered in the home or community where the family resides. Services are provided at a time that is agreed upon by the family and best fits their schedule,
- be flexible, are crucial to and respond to real family needs, and are linked to a wide variety of other services, such as housing, substance abuse treatment, mental health, health, job training, etc.
Growing Home Southeast offers the following community-based programs. For more information call us at (803) 791-5513 or toll free at 800-344-5498.
In-home Services – In-home Services provides intensive home and community based therapeutic interventions for emotionally and/or behaviorally disturbed children and their families. The overall goals of in-home services are: 1) prevent unnecessary removal of a child/youth from their home or 2) re-integrate a child/youth into their home and community or 3) to assist a family in crisis. Services are short term, intensive, therapeutic, psycho-educational, with interventions and counseling being provided to families in their home and community setting. Services are individualized, strengths-based, family-centered services that are developmentally sensitive to the emotional, behavioral, social and physical needs of the child.
Community-based Prevention Services – The Community-based Prevention Services program is designed to provide secondary prevention and engagement services to families that have been identified as having risk factors that without services have the potential for abuse and/or neglect. Community-based Prevention Services are provided in 36 counties through a contract with the South Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS). Growing Home Southeast contracts with other community service providers who engage families and provide services in their areas of the state.
Services include in-home visitation and monitoring, parent education, counseling, concrete services and referral to community programs to support the family. Many of the families referred for services by DSS would not have received any services without this program. The program is filling a gap in services for many of the families that we engage. The program is not meant to take the place of DSS investigations. High-risk families or allegations of abuse and neglect must be investigated by DSS. Families at lower risk are referred to the program where we are able to engage families, complete a family assessment and family plan in collaboration with the family to address their needs and the factors that can cause risks to child safety. The family plan provides an agreement and guides the work for family members and the case worker.
Strengthening Families Program – The Strengthening Families Program is a nationally recognized parenting program for high-risk and regular families. It is an evidence-based family skills training program found to significantly reduce problem behaviors in children whose parents participate in the program. The 14-week parenting classes are held at St. John’s Baptist Church. Groups for parents and a separate group for their children are part of what makes this program so successful. The program is possible due to a grant from the Children’s Trust of South Carolina.