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Our 2025 WUIP Impact Grant recipient, Families for Families, has spent their summer during the first grant quarter gearing up their programs to accommodate their new full time social worker.
To recap the need, Families for Families sought funding to expand and strengthen their programs, and a key element of the expansion was the need to include a full-time social worker on staff rather than a social worker intern.
The full-time social worker was hired on June 2nd. From the onboarding process they were able to determine that they could expand the interview process to include 3 more appointments per week. Increased interviews are key to the expansion as it is the first step to the referral and assistance programs. A goal of Families for Families was to increase Bergen County referrals to 100 for the coming year. For the three summer months, Bergen referrals totaled 23.
Their internal assistance programs include Community Dinners and Moms4Moms support groups, both of which include an educational component alongside mentoring and fellowship. At the Community Dinner on June 20th, 20 families were in attendance. The very timely topic of the dinner was “How to Stretch Your Dollar at the Grocery Store”. Focus was on the use of generic versus brand name goods, how to determine unit prices and the benefits of buying in bulk, and healthy versus junk food options. The next Community Dinner will be on Oct 10th. The Moms4Moms group meets every third Tuesday with 20 families committed to the group. This group is a peer-to-peer group, (mentor volunteers and clients) and includes a ‘fun’ activity coupled interactions and discussions on available resources.
To assist the volunteer mentors, Families for Families has created an Ally Program Training Program manual to make sure that the clients’ needs are best met by the volunteer. Families are matched with trained volunteer mentors who provide individualized, long-term guidance. Mentors meet with families at least twice a month, in person or virtually, to help navigate everyday challenges, connect with resources, and set and achieve personal goals. This one-on-one support creates a stable, trusted relationship during the critical transition out of homelessness. Mentors often assist with practical needs such as completing job applications, budgeting, or accessing childcare while also offering encouragement and accountability that helps families remain focused on their long-term goals. Plans for training from this manual are underway.
Families for Families also holds an annual summer picnic and this year, they were pleased to report that there were 150 attendees at the picnic! Additionally, they are rolling out a new monthly program called “Monthly Resource Day”. Recognizing that there are other organizations and agencies that can provide services and assistance to their clients that Families for Families cannot, they have set up this monthly date to invite outside groups to meet with their clients.
In response to our question about what aspects of the program have been most impactful thus far, they report: “Being able to have a social worker on staff full time has given us the ability to respond in a timely manner to client issues and needs as well as the bandwidth to follow up with clients on a more regular basis which is extremely important in being able to prevent crises for clients.”
If any of our WUIP members have a contact or are willing to share their experiences or expertise, they would be most welcome at the Moms4Moms or Community Dinner events. Please reach out to them via phone (201-499-5622) or through their website.
Submitted by Rosanne Buscemi
WUIP Grant Liaison