Fresh Start for Families: A Collaboratively-built Community-based Program for Families that are Homeless

Abstract

(from the chapter) Fresh Start for Families is a community-based program for families that are homeless' and living in shelters. The core of the program is a nine-week multiple-family discussion group (MFDG) that mixes members open discussions about challenges and coping approaches with specific activities designed to reverse demoralization, increase hope for a better immediate and long-term future, and revitalize families' resilience. Fresh Start is coordinated with a job-readiness, training, and placement program that parents can elect to join as well as with the shelters housing, childcare, social service, therapy, and recreation resources. To date. Fresh Start has been implemented in two New York City shelters: a general family homelessness shelter in the South Bronx housing 212 families and a 52-family shelter for women survivors of domestic violence and their children, whose location is confidential. The families are mostly African-American, Afro-Caribbean, or Latino, mostly headed by single mothers, with children ranging in age from infancy through midtwenties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)