The Eastside Family Center is about YOU... • YOU making your family better. • YOU making your neighborhood closer. • YOU making your home a better place to live. With our focus on families, we can work together to achieve positive change for your family. A Message from our Director: Welcome to the Eastside Family Center. Our mission is to connect families to their community through resources, referrals and relationship building. We are a program of the East Side Neighborhood Development Company and work out of four Eastside School sites. Our work with families includes providing referrals to resources such as food shelves, housing, shelters, parenting, health clinics, etc. We hold quarterly baby showers for women who are in their third trimester of their pregnancy or have delivered their baby within three months of the baby shower. We do home visits with our baby bag program, bringing resources and gifts to families of newborns on the Eastside. We offer free field trips and classes that are planned by parents as well as support groups and informal get-togethers. The Eastside Family Center provides child care, transportation and food for many of the events and programs to ensure families can participate. We bring together agencies to do projects to benefit families on the Eastside and encourage families to get involved with the community by showing them the many ways to get involved.       We are always looking for parents who are interested in joining us in our events and classes, joining our Advisory Council or providing assistance in child care and our many programs offered. Without active families we can not do anything! To make the Eastside a great place for kids, parents have to get involved and we are a great place to do that. Always remember, you do make a difference! Join us in our mission and help us make that difference! Sincerely, Joan Schlecht Director   MISSION The Eastside Family Center Mission is to value and strengthen the capacity of St. Paul's East Side communities, cultures and families in order to help healthy, nurtured children achieve their full potential and become active, contributing members in the community. ESFC connects children, families and the community through referrals, services, parent-driven programs and other support by helping improve the physical, emotional and educational development of children, enhancing parental skills, and extending neighborhood support to help develop and sustain high functioning families. GOALS The program uses a “membership questionnaire and application” at the onset of services that clearly identifies family history and income; and identifies appropriate services and outcomes. ESFC builds enduring relationships with families and teaches issues that matter to them most by helping families access the following types of activities. • Resource and Referral (connecting families to information and basic need support) • Wealth and Asset Building Strategies (accessing public benefits, employment strategies, money management and homeownership) • Direct Service Support (outreach and case management) • Cultural and Social Engagement (events to connect families to other families)   Community needs addressed include: • Knowledge of parenting and of child and youth development- Child Development needs including: early childhood family education; parenting skills; and mental and physical development assessments and activities. School Readiness needs including: education; literacy; language skills; Early Childhood Family Education; School Readiness; pre-school; and reducing numbers of school absences • Social Connections-Parent and Community Organizing initiatives including: parent and leadership empowerment; parent volunteerism; agency-to-agency interaction to promote trust and cohesiveness; reducing community-service duplication; and advocacy as well as offering cultural and social engagement activities for the families. • Concrete Supports for Parents and Parent Resilience-Family Functioning needs including: basic needs (food, clothing, shelter); parenting and life skills education to help to prevent child neglect & abuse; support groups and wealth/asset-building strategies.. • Nurturing and Attachment-Child Health needs including: pre-natal care; positive birth experiences; parent/child nutrition; access to early childhood screenings and immunizations; and safety and accident prevention.