Parenting education
Supporting Today's Parents | Nurturing Program | First-time Parents Initiative | Wraparound Milwaukee
Prevention has been an integral part of our philosophy. Reaching parents early, before and immediately after they give birth,
has proven more effective and less costly than intervening after problems have occurred.
By strengthening the capacity of families to nurture their children, our parenting education services promote health and well-being generation after generation.
Supporting today's parents
Supporting Today's Parents, in collaboration with 6 area hospitals and 4 community-based agencies, helps prevent child abuse and neglect and enhances parenting skills through supportive home visits, child development education and linkage to community resources.
The Nurturing Program
The Nurturing Program is an innovative education and support program that parents and children experience together. In collaboration with Family Resource Centers, a series of group sessions based on the Nurturing Program model are provided right in participants' neighborhoods, led by trained parent educators who are themselves graduates of the agency's parenting education programs.
The emphasis is on group support, shared learning and fostering nurturing behavior that gives parents the skills to help their children grow into healthy, self-sufficient teens and adults. Family Service staff trains and mentors the staff of neighborhood organizations hosting the program so that they are able to continue providing group sessions on their own, tailoring the curriculum to meet the specific needs of their clients, thus expanding the program's capacity to reach greater numbers of families.
First-time parents initiative
A coordinated, home-based support service for new parents. Assessments are provided at the hospital after delivery. Parents assessed as high risk are offered supportive home visits by a case manager who provides information on infant care, child development, linkage to needed services and monitors the parent's progress toward agreed-upon goals.
Wraparound Milwaukee
Wraparound Milwaukee is a community-wide initiative targeted at adolescents in the juvenile justice system, and emotionally disabled youth and their families. Through coordinated community services addressing the full spectrum of each family's needs ("wraparound" services), the program seeks to keep youth in their homes or communities and out of residential placement and further involvement in the court system.
As one of 8 case management agencies for Wraparound, we provide comprehensive assessment, crisis intervention, case management, support and advocacy services to ensure children's safety in their homes, promote family strengths and self-sufficiency, and develop natural support systems that will remain in place after services terminate. The program is administered by Milwaukee County Child & Adolescent Treatment Center with clients referred from Children's Court.
For more information, call Aurora Family Service at (414) 342-4560.
