San Juan Island Family Resource Center Programs
Prenatal through 4 Program provides home visiting to young parents and others upon referral or request to support families in parenting skills, knowledge of child development, and the importance of early literacy; provides support, literacy and activity groups to parents of infants and toddlers to increase opportunities for creating responsive social networks, interactive times for parents and children together. Distribution of free books and sponsorship of literacy/early learning activities and opportunities.
Resource and referral program provides financial assistance for meeting basic household needs: rent, food, utilities, child care, tutoring, medical, dental, et cetera. All services are provided free of charge, are confidential; many assistance programs have financial guidelines depending on the source of funding.
Readiness to Learn (RTL) school-based program to address non-academic barriers to school success, increase parents' involvement in their children's education, and provide resource and referral to outside of school sources of varying kinds of assistance. The San Juan Island Mentoring Program enhances RTL by matching youth ages 8 - 14 years one-on-one with an adult community member for fun, guidance, academic support, and emotional growth. Preschool to Kindergarten Transitions Program provides extra support to children during the summer between finishing preschool and entering kindergarten with home visits, and support in meeting "targets" for kindergarten entry.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
It is always difficult to find support for general operating expenses. Without the basic infrastructure required to run such a wide variety of programming, theis programming would/could not occur.