🎧 Listen to the full panel: Apple Podcasts | Commonwealth Club

On August 27, the Family Services Alliance and Safe & Sound joined the Commonwealth Club World Affairs Social Impact Member-Led Forum to ask one question: What do children need to thrive?

We usually answer that one system at a time: schools, health care, housing, mental health. But children experience their lives through their families. When families have stability and someone to turn to, children have a stronger foundation to learn and grow.

The whole argument, in a show of hands:
Moderator Kula Koenig, Chief Policy Officer at Safe & Sound, opened with a question for the room. Whose family ever needed something they could not afford? Nearly every hand went up. A wall of sticky notes told the same story: a stable home, someone to turn to, a little help at the right moment. What our families needed then is what families need now.

“A place, not a referral line”:
Gloria Tan, Executive Director of Gum Moon, has led Family Resource Centers for more than 30 years, serving immigrant and Asian families in Chinatown, the Richmond and the Sunset. Her answer was direct: children thrive when families thrive.
A Family Resource Center is a place, not a referral line. There is no income test and no crisis required to walk in. Families come for playgroups, parenting classes, housing help, diapers and food, and they build the protective factors that keep children safe. For families afraid to walk into a government office, FRCs are the trusted door.

Vicente’s story:
Vicente Milan, a San Francisco native, Army veteran and father of three, found that open door at Compass Family Services. There he found a whole web of support: Triple P parenting classes, the Repeat and Repair group, couples counseling, a housing subsidy, and help getting his son developmental services.
Stable housing made all of it possible. Today Vicente tells struggling parents he meets on the street the same thing: you need a community and an open door, and it is out there. His one wish is that there were more to go around. The Spanish language Triple P class has a long waitlist.

What the city gets back:
As San Francisco invested in prevention over two decades, substantiated child abuse cases fell by about 60 percent. Last year, responding to child abuse and its long term harm cost the city $333 million. All 27 Family Resource Centers run on about $23 million. Asked what families need most, Gloria’s answer was simple: reliable, long term funding, so help is there before the crisis, not after.
Get involved

🎧 Hear the full conversation on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn more about the Family Services Alliance, the network of 45 organizations behind this work, at sffamilyservicesalliance.org, and follow us on Instagram at @thefamilyservicesalliance.