Family Support Services’ (FSS) programs are designed to help parents as they work to overcome challenges to effective parenting. These challenges include prior trauma, a history of neglect or abuse, substance abuse, mental illness, poverty, inadequate housing, and lack of social support.

We believe that parents want the best for their children. But parenting is a difficult job and young parents may need support. As their children’s first teachers, parents lay a strong foundation for the future during the infant and toddler years. Children’s later ability to learn and subsequent emotional health are strongly tied to their parents’ parenting skills.

Our programs help parents understand how young children, birth to five-years old, develop and grow. We teach the importance of play, reading, nutrition, and positive parent-child interaction. Our staff also provides developmental screening for all children, and, when needed, assists parents as they navigate the Early Intervention system. FSS social workers offer families parenting education, information on child development, linkages to a broad array of community resources, and advocacy services.

Four FSS Child Welfare programs support families with children:

• Family School is a center-based parenting education program. It works with children that have been referred by the Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS) to address child abuse and neglect, keeping families safely together whenever possible. Family School also supports families working towards reunification after children have been placed in foster care. Children birth to five years old attend Family School with their parents/caregivers.
• IHPS (In Home Protective Services) is a new DHS-funded program that is targeted at families engaged in behaviors which result in child abuse or neglect. An intensive home visiting service, IHPS is designed to eliminate any safety threats, maintain children of all ages in their own home, prevent the emergence of new threats, and enhance a family’s capability to nurture their children. There are two IHPS programs, one serving families with parents or children who have cognitive challenges (IHPS-CI) and the other serving families with no specific limitations (IHPS-General).
• Healthy Start is a new center based and home visiting program for women who are pregnant and/or have children up to 24 months old. Funded by the Philadelphia Department of Health, Division of Maternal Child and Family Health, Healthy Start addresses the causes of high infant mortality and low birth weight among high risk Southwest Philadelphia communities with targeted service and community linkages.
• Family Partnership is a voluntary, home visiting, preventive program that provides timely parenting assistance for families with young children. We reach out with targeted social work support to help families before they are in crisis. Funding for the program comes from the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, Community-based Prevention Services.

To contact us about any of these programs please email childwelfare@FSSinc.org or call 215-438-9890.

Not all of FSS’s costs are covered by funding from government contracts. FSS’s relies on private foundations, and individual donors, to support many aspects of our programs. To make a donation that will benefit Child Welfare programs, Click here to visit the Support FSS page and look for donation options (by mail or through PayPal) on the right sidebar.