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Family Strengthening Initiative
March/April 2009 Newsletter
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In This Issue:
Our Partner -Taller San Jose
Apostolic Assembly reinforces the family
Upcoming Events
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FuturoNow Partner Spotlight
Taller San Jose |
 The mission of Taller San Jose is to "walk young people out of poverty." To achieve this goal, Taller San Jose offers life skills training to 18-28 year olds at risk for drug abuse, incarceration, and other hindrances preventing these individuals from maintaining stable careers. After a 14-week training period, graduates from the program are able to approach potential employers as drug-free and qualified applicants to work in a professional setting. As a first year partner with FuturoNow, Taller San Jose has seen encouraging results from adding Within My Reach classes into their Lifeskills curriculum.
Taller San Jose recognized that relationship and familial issues were often a barrier preventing many students from enrolling into the program, and thus pursued partnership with FuturoNow. The Within My Reach program is a six-week curriculum offered to students while they are in the Taller program, and is also offered to Taller alumni. In these classes, students are taught the three safeties within a relationship: physical, emotional, and commitment, and taught the importance of expectations in relationships.
Mr. Saldaña explained that a major emphasis of the course was that sex should not be the foundation of the relationship, but that other values need to be a priority. "What I found most important was that students had the opportunity to decide for themselves the direction they wanted their relationships to go."
Mr. Saldaña commented that he was amazed to see how quickly the students became engaged in discussion about relationships, and some students commented to him that their friends were shocked to hear them come home and talk so much about relationships as well. "I love the Within My Reach curriculum, but hearing and communicating with students about their past relationship mistakes and seeking advice to make better decisions in the future was by far my favorite part of the class," Mr. Saldaña said.
Classes are advertised at college career fairs, parole and probation offices, and in church bulletins. However, word of mouth has been the most successful means of outreach for the program. Mr. Saldaña explained that Taller San Jose is growing immensely as students tell their families and boyfriends or girlfriends about the program, and the organization is at a point where there is becoming a huge need for new programs.
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Apostolic Assembly
Reinforcing Family Structure |
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David Martinez, Pastor and Site Coordinator for Apostolic Assembly described the emotional weight of unresolved issues and conflict within families, "The problem itself may be the size of a quarter, but the emotion involved is like a basketball." Apostolic Assembly is located in Rancho Cucamonga, California, and now offers three classes in Spanish and English, including Within My Reach for individuals, Family Wellness for families, and Relationship Enhancement for couples. "I'm a pastor and have been teaching over 35 years, but with these classes you must learn such dynamic teaching styles," said Mr. Martinez.
Mr. Martinez teaches the Family Wellness course with his wife, Naomi, and said the experience has benefited them and those attending the class. He explained the value of participants watching him and his wife work together as partners. "The more you teach with your wife, just one word or a single glance will signal a segue into the next part of the presentation."
Mr. Martinez described the challenge of facilitating open discussion within a Hispanic group, especially when the men are separated from the women. David explained it is hard for Hispanic men to open up in front of other men about their affection for their wives or discuss their relationship issues. However, the level of engagement and unique presentation of familial conflict have a powerful impact on those who attend.
During Family Wellness classes, facilitators use the audience to demonstrate how various family conflicts and changes in family structure can create feelings of isolation for one or more members. "Sometimes, we would take a tall guy and use him as the child, or the wife would be the husband to keep everyone's' eyes open," Mr. Martinez explained. For some, watching the visual breakdown of family structures during conflict struck close to home and brought many to tears.These demonstrations allowed audience members to feel empathy for other family members for the first time, or realize the damage that a divorce or another conflict had affected themselves as children into adulthood.
Mr. Martinez measures the success of these classes through the unique mentoring program implemented by Apostolic Assembly. Each participant fills out an evaluation form after the program, and attends three face-to-face sessions with the facilitator lasting about 30 minutes to answer questions and evaluate the effectiveness the class had on the individual, couple, or family. "The results [from mentoring] are just great...people usually ask us if we have more classes," Mr. Martinez commented.
Mr. Martinez makes sure that during every Family Wellness class, he emphasizes that the classes are not counseling or therapy sessions, but rather lessons on how to talk to every member of the family and how to operate and solve problems on their own. Mr. Martinez warns, "If we do not learn how to communicate well, eventually our loved ones will stop listening to us altogether, even if we're right."
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| Dates to Remember |
 June 8-9 - "Improving and Sustaining Your Family Strengthening Program" two-day training event: This 2-day event will be facilitated by Urban Strategies. Leaders from our partner organizations will attend workshops designed to equip them for program improvement and expansion in all areas. Topics will include program financial management, curriculum delivery enrichment, program sustainability, domestic violence, and more. Contact us for more information.
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