Nearly all of our work in home based is with parents so that they can provide a stable and safe living environment for their children. We will occasionally work directly with the children, but our home based workers are not counselors or therapists.

They are case managers. They are working with families to try to prevent them from entering the child welfare system. In fact home based is the only program at Gateway Woods that is focused exclusively on prevention.

It means that the vast majority of families and children we work with in our home based program are not yet in the child welfare or juvenile probation systems. Our goal in home based is to connect families and children in need with people in their communities who can help them so that they never need to go into the system.

Most of our clients come to us through a local agency called SCAN (Stop Child Abuse and Neglect). Children and families are referred to SCAN because the family is in crisis and needs help. SCAN then asks Gateway Woods to get involved with the family and try to help them get back on their feet. Some of our clients are referred directly by the Department of Child Services or Juvenile Probation, and some of our clients contact Gateway Woods directly for help.

Many of the families we work with are either homeless or live in an unstable living arrangement. Many of them do not have enough food to eat or a job to secure food and housing. Our home based workers try to help families find housing, food, employment, and other sorts of help so they don’t have to enter the child welfare system. In addition we teach parenting skills and connect families and children to people in their communities that can help them.

Most of our parenting skills training is done one-on-one with individual families, but we also have a grant to do parenting classes in the community. We are currently offering parenting classes in partnership with Charis House, a local women and children’s shelter.

The length of time that home based services are in place varies quite a bit. The clients who are referred by SCAN can only be in our program for four months. If they still need additional help after the four months, we can refer them to a longer term program. Some of our clients who were sent to us by the Department of Child Services have been with us for years. A lot of it depends on what the needs are and how quickly the family can stabilize.

We also are an affiliate of the Community Harvest Food Bank as a Community Cupboard Voucher Program. This allows us to help families get access to a local food pantry.