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 Click above for more information about how you can support Knotts Family Agency and enjoy an enchanted evening of music and wine under the stars. |
Knotts Family Agency
Service Programs
KFA's present funding comes from three major sources: The entire organization will be geared toward this 'care as an Investment' strategy by the way the organization develops and allocates its resources. Our theme of Care as an Investment centers on investing on our children and strategies for protecting and protecting children left without an immediate source of caring support. This two-prong approach elegantly satisfies and balances two fund development strategies for the organization.
First Five San Bernardino County (2003-2013)
Contract Funding- Initially, provided an opportunity to enhance program services in Child Development, Mental Health, Specialized Nutrition program to over 1,000 parents of children 0-5 years old. Current funding (2010-2013) expands services to be under the umbrella of a Family Resource Center
Department of Behavioral Health (2010-2013)
Contract Funding – to develop mental health wellness as a Family Resource Center in prevention of mental illness in all ages.
Foster Family Agency (Continual)
State funding for foster care programs - foster family organization serving over 500 children.
Private Licensed Adoption Agency (Licensed in October, 2010)
Recently licensed to provide an expanded range of services for our clients and enhanced placement options for the placing agencies, which we currently serve. The formulation of this program is in response to the growing need of the children in our community.
The Department of Health and Human Services (2006 – 2012)
County contract funding for Independent Living Skills Program for over 45 youth transitioning out of foster care.
Community Development Grant Block (2010 – 2011)
Provides mentoring services to Transitional Age Youth to promote youth leadership and reduce violence.
Conceptual Theme Underlying All Program Services
Mental Health is a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her own community (WHO, 2003). At the level of the family it is the capacity to live a full life and in particular be able to generate ideas in thought and move from thought to reality as well as develop the flexibility to deal effectively with life's inevitable challenges.
Community-based organizations such as KFA are being called upon to rebuild shattered lives by rebuilding our community; but individuals do not build community. Community builds community. Our prevention approach focuses attention on reduction of stress and the attenuation of crisis, but the aim of helping families develop the capacities to both reduce the vulnerabilities and go beyond (family strengthening and self-sufficiency or child resiliency). The goals are to help families reduce risk for negative outcomes, achieve positive outcomes, maintain family and foster care stability, reduce out of home placements or return to court ordered supervision and decrease the possibility of mental breakdowns.
All services follow a logic model and include a pre and post assessment, one or more of a range of evidence-based intervention protocols to strengthen family, build self-sufficiency and/or resiliency.
Service protocols are designed to be culture sensitive, family inclusive best practices and are easily accessible.
Protocols emphasize:
• Prevention approach as a core method. The focus is on integration of risk reduction services into community (Churches, schools, child welfare, and juvenile justice settings) and the provision of early intervention opportunities for children/youth with early psychiatric symptoms.
• The building on family and child strengths i.e., care provider recognition and alliance with the adaptive capacities of the child and the family rather than focus on 'discovering' some clinical problem.
• A structured case-management approach, the basis of which is an effective inclusion of the family in team planning and self-advocacy and in our model, framed as a Narrative Process**.
• Services are delivered in the most normative and least restrictive settings that are clinically appropriate. Children/parents have access to a continuum of care with assignment of level or intensity of care determined by clinically informed decision-rules.
• The emphasis on the use of culturally sensitive best and/or evidence-based practice models to achieve the desired behavior change that will lead to self-sufficiency for the family in the given service.
• The formation of a Community Advisory Board, involving major community inclusion, as a critical decision-making body and evaluation body in the life of the organization.
Focus of the Villages: Community development is the context for effective parenting. The community team unit is the Village. The smallest such unit of Village is the collaboration between KFA and a single parent-child unit. This is our basic unit of community development. Attention is focused on creating Villages as emotional and social support assets, around the parent and child, as a first point of departure in re-building community. Key to this rebuilding process is the re-emergence of parent-child's VOICE. The Village becomes the vehicle for centering in on both social-emotional support assets and economic; as we pay close attention the social-emotional development of the parent-child unit, we attend to economic assets to include financial literacy skills, job training, housing and transportation. There are many types of villages requiring differing levels of asset rebuilding efforts in the approach to the protection of children. As an organization we serve primarily children and families who have some level of difficulty.
Success Highlights:
A synopsis of the key success both for customers and the organization is as follows:
• Goal accomplishment – We met and surpassed our goal and projected numbers to create positive networks of nurturing care to over 2000 parents and their children / Youth.
• Knowledge/Skill Domain Specific Achievements – Our 2000+ parents achieved the following human gain: 90% completed training, with high proficiency in knowledge and skills gained related to positive parenting practices, bonding and attachment, age appropriate development of children, physical health, cognitive, social and emotional coping skills to improve parenting behavior; 75% achieved behavior change; 96% reported program satisfaction.
• Development of Evidence-based models – We successfully retrofitted and tested a Narrative Process Model (King, 2004) as our fundamental framework to advance our 'core expertise' of creating nurturing care relationships for all ages (Child-Youth-Young Adult- Adults-Families-Senior Citizens).
• Development of Evidence Based Intervention Village Approach Model – Our use of Village assemblies as the context for all training was highly successful in recruitment, service delivery and voluntarism. It has resulted in dramatically improved attendance for particularly African American parents and third generation Latino parents of children and youth. Our approach is being adopted by Loma Linda's Hispanic Center on Health Disparities.
• Staff Development - We developed a Best Practices Training Institute that specializes in Culture and Social issues of the community. This Center now provides certification training and technical assistance to other agencies in the Inland Area including students from local Universities, Faith Based Organizations and other CBOs (for Technical Assistance to local Community Based Organizations).
• Sustainability – The efforts of the Training Institute have resulted in funding from Edison and collaboration with UCLA, CSUSB, Loma Linda University and Argosy on key child-focused projects. This in turn has resulted in our attracting strong professionals who are leaders in heir field.
Contact: Sandy Oquin, Administration and Finance
Email: SOquin@kfpinstitute.org
Phone: 909-880-0600
Address: 1505 W. Highland Ave, San Bernardino, CA 92411