Family Support Services
Our goal is to break the cycle of poverty by creating an empowering environment for families that inspires families to obtain, sustain and maintain permanent housing, as well as achieve educational and career goals to bring stability to their lives. The program’s mission is to address core issues that emerge among poor, homeless and families in severe crisis due to a lack of skills required to obtain and maintain permanent housing.
Who We Serve
First Place serves families struggling with the risks and realities of homelessness who have school age children and live in the Greater Seattle area. Our programs specialize in hard to serve families with multiple barriers to stability. Issues facing families we serve are:
- homelessness
- mental illness
- single parenthood
- domestic violence
- substance abuse
- former incarceration of a parent
Every family who comes through First Place enrolls in case management as a vital process of moving them from homelessness to self-sufficiency. Services are provided at no cost to clients.
How We Help
Family Support Services works with families who have children enrolled in First Place Education program, provides rental assistance to families facing eviction, meets the basic needs of families, and offers service-enriched transitional housing to families.
Rental Assistance: First Place maintains a fund to provide rental assistance to families who are facing eviction. This program is intended for families who need to overcome a on-time problrm that prevents them from paying rent. If you are a family needing assistance and you live in Seattle, we recommend you call 211 and they will refer you to an agency for rental assistance funds.
Wrap-Around Services: First Place provice wrap around case management support to all families who are enrolled in one of our programs. Case Management focuses on five core-competencies that individuals and families need to be self-sufficient. These are:
- Housing focuses on helping the family obtain, sustain, and maintain housing. The Case Manager can assist families in any stage of housing, such as locating shelter, transitional housing, or permanent (market rate or subsidized) housing.
- Job Readiness/Employment focuses on helping individuals become employable and maintain employment. The Case Manager helps assess employment interests and skills and connects individuals to appropriate job training/job readiness resources.
- Education/Training focuses on helping individuals meet their education and or job skills needs. The Case Manager connects the adults in the family to education and/or job training programs while also helping the adults support their children's educational challenges and goals.
- Life Skills focuses on helping the adults become resourceful to obtain the skills to support their families. The Case Manager coaches families in specific life skills and also links them to outside programs focused on parenting, budgeting/money management, household management, and other daily living skills that support self-sufficiency.
- Health focuses on helping families overcome physical and/or mental disabilities. The Case Manager connects families to services dealing with nutrition, physical health, mental health, substance abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and other health issues.
Service-Enriched Housing: First Place has a limited number of apartments to place families while they are in transition between temporary housing and finding permanent housing. Families living in our housing can choose to enroll their children into First Place School.
Family Unification Program: Family Unification is a new program designed specifically for female offenders who are mothers to children under 18 years of age. Learn more.
