April Designer Showhouse
Tax deductible
GOFUNDME
Every month, hundreds of children in the Sebastian County foster care system find their “home living room” every week at STEPS Family Resource Center when they come for supervised visitation with their non-custodial parents. Seeing the faces of those children light up when they are reunited with their parents warms your heart, as you can only imagine the trauma they have endured. Regardless of the danger and unhealthy living conditions, abused and neglected children desire to be with their parents. The traumatic removal experience brings fear, anxiety and a sense of abandonment – especially in light of the fact most of these children are shipped out to neighboring counties to find a bed, resulting in not only a loss of their family and their homes, but their schools, their neighbors, their friends and their churches. When children are able to visit their non-custodial parents in child-friendly, homelike visitation rooms, their sense of abandonment is reduced and their fears and anxieties are alleviated. Successful visitations are a vital component to reunification.
Susan Hooks co-founded STEPS in 2010 after volunteering at the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). While volunteering at DCFS, she discovered families visiting in hallways, around social workers desks, and in closets. Not only were there no toys – there was no laughter. Susan went into action and designed four rooms to resemble a home-like atmosphere where families could visit privately. Today, STEPS Family Resource Center, a nonprofit devoted to strengthening families in crisis, has played a key role in the reunification of hundreds of families.
We have been able to acquire the building next door to our building, at 706 Garrison Avenue in the hopes we can expand our services. To meet a direct request from a director at DCFS regarding children who are often removed from unsanitary living conditions, we plan to provide a handicap accessible shower, a changing room with clean clothes and a small kitchen in the rear of the building to provide them with a snack while a bed is located for them. They will know, without a doubt that their lives are changing for the better.
The front of the building will be renovated to contain two new supervised visitations rooms and small office spaces so the staff will now be located on site as opposed to up on the third floor. The building will have a large education room for Nurturing Parenting Classes, Life Skills Classes, and Career Readiness classes. We will also use these rooms for support groups, such as STEP-Carefully! For Stepparents, and Co-Dependency Classes, and Partnering with Parents.
We have been successful in securing funds for the demolition and resurfacing of the floors from First Presbyterian Church and The Kerr Grant. Thanks to an in-kind donation of Italian tile from John Maestri and great rates from WESTARK Plumbing, we are ready to build the handicap shower!
Please help us complete our renovations! We need your help with: electrical work, sheetrock for office and education room walls and small and large kitchen appliances.
Please check out our wish list on our Facebook page for additional needed items.
We would LOVE to give you a tour and show you our facility! Please consider helping us heal families and keep them together!
Every month, hundreds of children in the Sebastian County foster care system find their “home living room” every week at STEPS Family Resource Center when they come for supervised visitation with their non-custodial parents. Seeing the faces of those children light up when they are reunited with their parents warms your heart, as you can only imagine the trauma they have endured. Regardless of the danger and unhealthy living conditions, abused and neglected children desire to be with their parents. The traumatic removal experience brings fear, anxiety and a sense of abandonment – especially in light of the fact most of these children are shipped out to neighboring counties to find a bed, resulting in not only a loss of their family and their homes, but their schools, their neighbors, their friends and their churches. When children are able to visit their non-custodial parents in child-friendly, homelike visitation rooms, their sense of abandonment is reduced and their fears and anxieties are alleviated. Successful visitations are a vital component to reunification.
Susan Hooks co-founded STEPS in 2010 after volunteering at the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). While volunteering at DCFS, she discovered families visiting in hallways, around social workers desks, and in closets. Not only were there no toys – there was no laughter. Susan went into action and designed four rooms to resemble a home-like atmosphere where families could visit privately. Today, STEPS Family Resource Center, a nonprofit devoted to strengthening families in crisis, has played a key role in the reunification of hundreds of families.
We have been able to acquire the building next door to our building, at 706 Garrison Avenue in the hopes we can expand our services. To meet a direct request from a director at DCFS regarding children who are often removed from unsanitary living conditions, we plan to provide a handicap accessible shower, a changing room with clean clothes and a small kitchen in the rear of the building to provide them with a snack while a bed is located for them. They will know, without a doubt that their lives are changing for the better.
The front of the building will be renovated to contain two new supervised visitations rooms and small office spaces so the staff will now be located on site as opposed to up on the third floor. The building will have a large education room for Nurturing Parenting Classes, Life Skills Classes, and Career Readiness classes. We will also use these rooms for support groups, such as STEP-Carefully! For Stepparents, and Co-Dependency Classes, and Partnering with Parents.
We have been successful in securing funds for the demolition and resurfacing of the floors from First Presbyterian Church and The Kerr Grant. Thanks to an in-kind donation of Italian tile from John Maestri and great rates from WESTARK Plumbing, we are ready to build the handicap shower!
Please help us complete our renovations! We need your help with: electrical work, sheetrock for office and education room walls and small and large kitchen appliances.
Please check out our wish list on our Facebook page for additional needed items.
We would LOVE to give you a tour and show you our facility! Please consider helping us heal families and keep them together!
Organiser
Gigi Hooks
Organiser
Fort Smith, AR
The Steps Inc
Registered charity
Donations are typically 100% tax-deductible in the US.
