Building for the Future of our Community
Every single day since 1866, members of the Newport County community come together at Child &
Family: to receive help, to give help, and to support the work of others. 365 days a year, Child &
Family is working around the clock throughout our Newport County community to provide compassionate
care to all those who are in need. With an outstanding reputation, solid financial history, and
exceptional professional staff, Child & Family is the oldest and largest social service agency in
Newport County. It is where people turn for help with personal and family emergencies and crisis.
Each year, the requests for services at Child & Family continue to grow at a steady rate. Last year, approximately 3000 Aquidneck Island residents were enrolled in an on-site agency program. In addition, through our school-based and home-based programs thousands more were served. An incredible growth in programs in recent years, while critically important to our community, has put significant strain on the Agency’s building infrastructure.
Today, Child & Family:
- Extends help to more than 5,000 community “family” members each year
- Provides overnight housing for more than 250 people each night
- Provides child care to 100 working families
- Provides individual and family counseling
- Provides children without families a safe place to live in a family environment
- Provides homeless mothers transitional housing so that they and their children can have a safe place to liven and where they can learn the parenting and job skills they require to ultimately take full responsibility for themselves and their family
- Provides teens and young adults, both in school and in the community, with student assistance services, substance abuse counseling, school to career counseling, and general counseling programming
- Provides elders with care management, homemaker and home health aid and neighborhood friendly visiting services.
- Has an annual operating budget of more than $18 million
- Employs a full-time staff of more than 225 employees, countless part-time employees and coordinates a volunteer pool of more than 300 community members
- Operates and maintains 22 facilities
Simply writing down who benefits from the programs and services offered by Child & Family does not begin to do justice to the organization’s true outreach. Far beyond the statistics and the ever-increasing enrollment in the programs are the people who are helped who never come through the agency’s doors.
When Child & Family’s trained staff members intervene in a troubled life, they reveal a new path to someone who only saw closed doors. When teenagers receive help to get off drugs, they go on to live lives of which they and their families can feel proud. They put drug abuse and reckless, criminal behavior that affects everyone behind them.
Child & Family social workers offer strategies for youngsters dealing with anger and coping with abuse so they can feel good about themselves again and understand their feelings.
Pregnant women and young mothers learn how to be caring parents. It is their choice. If they are taught an alternative way of living their lives and are supported in their decision to change, they will adopt healthy ways of managing the stress of their lives and make decisions that benefit them and their children.
An Urgent Need
Child & Family has everything except the proper space to coordinate, organize, provide and maintain
dozens of services that help everyone who needs help. Demand for services increase everyday as
families in Newport County struggle with challenges, some of which are the direct result of our
ever-increasing cost of living and exorbitant real estate values. Today there is an urgent need for
a central facility that will locate under one roof all the programs, services and administration
that are currently spread across three facilities on Aquidneck Island.
In response to this urgent need, the Board of Directors of Child & Family has embarked upon a $14.1 million comprehensive capital improvement program to secure the future of this essential community agency. Four million dollars will be raised through a community-wide capital campaign – proceeds from the sale of properties and bank financing will make up the balance.
This $4 million, three-year Capital Campaign is the cornerstone of our improvement program. The major goal of the campaign is to raise money from our community for the new headquarters of Child & Family, which will be located on property owned by Child & Family at the Aquidneck Corporate Park in Middletown, RI.
A Plan for the Future
After assessing our over infrastructure needs, Child & Family’s Board of Directors has decided upon
the following plan of action:
Building a single Child Care, Program and Office Building
A new 38,000 square-foot facility will allow all of the Child & Family administrative and program services such as Child Care, Counseling Services, Elder Care Services, Family Strengthening Services and the Ophelia Programs, to be united in a single building. Bringing the majority of Child & Family programs and services together under one roof will create an efficient client friendly service system that is simply not possible with our current multiple location agency. It will also allow the agency to provide space to serve as a center where community groups can congregate, which is desperately needed.
Renovation of Portsmouth Center & Construction of New Residential Program
The Child & Family Portsmouth Center provides temporary shelter for some of our State’s most vulnerable girls. Established nearly 20 years ago it was Child & Familys first detached residential program. Heavy use of a building with several structural problems has resulted in the need for major renovations and upgrades. Because the building is located on a large lot, it provides us with the opportunity to construct a second connected residence on the same site thereby improving our program effectiveness and creating cost efficiencies.
Help us build a stronger community! Feel the satisfaction that comes from providing caring support to families and children. You will be making a real difference – right here in your own community.
This is the first time Child & Family has sought community support through a capital campaign in over 20 years. When you donate money to the Child & Family Community Campaign, you are making a meaningful contribution that will have an amazing impact on many people who need and deserve our help.
Finally, the new Child & Family building itself is a good example of the type of construction that the Environmental Protection Agency is working to promote through its Resource Conservation Challenge, surpassing mechanical, electrical, and plumbing requirement standards. The Child & Family facility will become the first builing in the State of Rhode Island to utilize National Grid’s “Advanced Building Systems” program and will be classified as a High Performance Building by exceeding all required code standards. The building design for the Counseling Services Center integrates many sustainable and energy efficient features to optimize the following:
- Health and Indoor Quality
- Thermal Comfort
- Visual Comfort
- Acoustic Comfort
- Security and Safety
- Energy Efficiency
Advanced Buildings is a locally sponsored national program, and is a tool for design teams wishing to create high performance commercial buildings that stand out for their energy efficiency and healthy environments.
We invite and encourage your questions, thoughts, and participation.
PLEASE support our Community Campaign.
MAKE or PLEDGE A DONATION of SUPPORT
