The Family Institute is the provention arm of The Methodist Home for
Children and Youth. This institute works through local churches to help
strengthen families through parenting seminars, marriage workshops, helping
churches start after schol programs and assessing and adressing the needs of
caregivers. The Family Institute's passion for prevention is reflected in
its promotion of the Search Institute's developmental assets and challenges
churches to move toward best practice in the ways they minsiter to children
and youth. Each year, the Family Institute presents the CHILDREN AND
FAMILIES FIRST AWARD to three churches across the South Georgia Conference.The promotion of foster care through local churches is an other way the Family Institute ministers to children in the shadows of the steeples of
churches.
The Family Institute provides to congregations, programs that are educational, preventative and supportive. The goal is to raise up an army of volunteers to minister to those at-risk children who dwell in the shadows of churches' steeples. Our hope is to keep children from entering into the welfare system. This will be accomplished in the following ways:
•Make available to churches and other groups The Search Institute’s program, Building Assets in Congregations. This five-hour seminar will show members how to build assets in youth that make them less prone to become involved in at-risk behavior.
• Recruit and train laypersons who desire to provide mentoring and other supportive services for children and youth.
• Provide ongoing needs assessments with children and youth to determine what programs will be most appriopriate.
• Promote intergenerational activities for children and youth at the Rumford Center and in other appropriate settings.
• Provide seminars in the areas of marriage enrichment, parenting and money management to strengthen families from the inside out.
• Prepare and distribute videos and other resources to churches that operate in, and celebrate examples of, creative ministry to at-risk children and youth. For more information contact:
Dr. Edwin Chase, Director Family Institute
304 Pierce Avenue
Macon, Georgia 31203
478-464-2208 |
