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Family and Children First Council

125 E. Court Street, Suite 350, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
PH: (513) 946-4990 | FX: (513) 632-6527

Children First Program

 
One of the premier programs of the Hamilton County Family and Children First Council (FCFC) is the Children First Program (CFP). Typically, FCFC contracts with about twenty agencies to deliver prevention, intervention, treatment and education services through the 10 public schools across three school Districts in CFP full service schools. CFP programs are aimed at promoting school achievement, positive youth development, and parent and family involvement. Providers are selected on the basis of their ability to provide cost-effective, quality services that are tailored to meet the individual needs of the schools.

Children First Programs address one or more of the following priorities:

Priority 1: To decrease rates of truancy, suspension, and expulsion.

Priority 2: To decrease rates of drop out.

Priority 3: To decrease rates of abuse and neglect.

Priority 4: To increase school connectedness.

Programs provided within each school range from long-term, intense, individually oriented interventions such as mental health and substance abuse treatment, school nursing services, social skills building groups and services for grieving children to broad-based events such as after-school art programs, recreational activities and health and family fun fairs, which enhance student and family connections with the school. The Family and Children First Council contracts for many of the services it offers in the schools; other services are donated by agencies or community organizations free of charge. Though there are some similarities in the programs offered at the Family and Children First Schools, there are also many programs that are unique to each school, as one of the hallmarks of this program is its ability to tailor programs to meet the individual needs of each school.

Probably the most important component of the Children First Program is the FCFC coordinator. Though employed by the Family and Children First Council, the coordinators are each housed at the schools they service and are an integral, and usually essential, part of the school. Overall, the coordinator has responsibility for designing, implementing and overseeing a school-wide program that will help students reach their full potential. The many job duties of the FCFC coordinators include soliciting providers, monitoring the provision of services, coordinating services between providers and teachers and among providers, developing training and consultation for teachers, forming relationships with the community and fostering a family friendly environment in the school. The roles the coordinator fills are varied and frequently changing and depend largely on the needs of the school and the principal.

The FCFC Children First Program is an unusually comprehensive program that has been heralded by the schools it serves as a one of a kind program that is indispensable to the schools in which it operates.