| How We Began...
Family and Youth Initiatives, (FYI), has been serving youth and families since 1993. The organization was first established in 1978 as the Tri-County Women's Network to foster community-wide respect for teens and to provide free services for teen and poor mothers through three pregnancy centers. In 1993, these pregnancy centers experienced a 45% increase in ten and eleven-year-olds requesting pregnancy tests. This shocking trend inspired the organization to create the Real Life Program, which immediately began educating the community about the need for abstinence-until-marriage. Two years ago, FYI helped form a collaboration of community agencies to provide a united focus of educating young people and creating an environment with the communities we serve that support teen decisions to postpone sexual activity until marriage.
|
Who is FYI?
Family and Youth Initiatives (FYI) comes from a strong background of five divisions who have built a reputation based on integrity, ethics, and service. The organization's mission statement is "Educating Families, Strengthening Communities" and the vision of the organization is "Working hand-in-hand to help with clients and community to help educate youth and families to make the healthiest choices".
Each of these five divisions, Women's Network, Real Life In-School, Real Life STARS, Empowering Our Youth, and Little Scholars incorporates a different dimension into the structure of the mission statement. Within these programs we work with parents who have children ages 3-5 who need a little help in being prepared for the school setting, middle and high school youth who need education on making healthy choices regarding at-risk behaviors, youth who need extra help in tutoring for their school work, needy families who need either a listening heart, education in pregnancy, parenting, or material help, and at-risk family members who need emotional material, and educational support. The goal is to teach our youth and families so we can break the cycle of poverty and help them become self-sufficient adults who make positive choices, are responsible for the lives of themselves and the families they create, and have a sense of community responsibility.
Each part of the project will build on the other for the message of positive choices to be taught in a consistent building method from the moment the client comes into the pregnancy center through her child's adolescence, teenage years and throughout college. Each part of the program educates about character building and responsibility within the family and community.
For more information please call Pat at 937.845.0403 or e-mail pat@familyandyouthinitiatives.org.
|
|
