Healthy Families & Relationships

At certain times, children, parents and family members need additional support and information to tackle life's challenges and transitions. Families First equips parents and children with the skills they need to function and cope at their optimal level, as well as to build and maintain stronger and healthier relationships. Families First supports children, youth and adults to advocate on their own behalf, serve as resources for our work, and become success leaders for their families and communities.

Counseling & Support

Family Life and Parenting Education

Healthy Babies and Moms

School Success

Counseling & Support

Individual, Family, Marriage and Group Counseling (English and/or Spanish)

Families First's counseling services assist children, parents, and families to express, understand and cope with the situations and events that cause them distress and challenge their ability to be healthy and well. The goal is to create or restore child and family functioning to their fullest potential and provide hope for a brighter future. Families First provides solution-focused counseling and therapy throughout Metro Atlanta in office settings, as well as at community-based sites in partnership with schools, community-based organizations, housing service agencies, and health centers.

Psycho-educational Groups

Groups address the shared experiences, concerns and needs that cause distress, isolation and depression among children, parents and families. Groups create networks of support, identify coping strategies and build skills to adjust to life's changes, challenges, and traumas including death, suicide, childhood sexual abuse, family violence, abandonment, divorce, substance use and income loss.

Family Violence Intervention Program (FVIP)

FVIP helps participants acknowledge the impact of their violence on their families, accept responsibility for their violent behavior, and change violent behavior. FVIP is State-Certified and emphasizes victim safety and perpetrator accountability. Participation may be voluntary or court-ordered. We serve the following counties: Fulton, Cobb, Dekalb, Douglas, Gwinnett and Clayton and beyond.

Anger Management

Anger Management classes assists participants in identifying personal triggers that lead to inappropriate social behavior, and practice ways of controlling their emotions before violence, or the threat of violence, begins.

Project Turning Point

Project Turning Point encourages individuals to develop strategies for recognizing and controlling negative impulses that result in unhealthy and harmful behavior. Through peer group discussion, beginning shoplifters work to identify and address the thought-processes that led to their behavior, and recognize the legal and social risks and consequences of their actions.

Substance Abuse Groups

These three-session groups enhance adults' awareness about their substance use and abuse issues including the impact of use on their children and families. Participants are given tools and resources to reduce and eliminate use, mend and repair relationships, and make positive changes in their lives.

Family Life & Parenting Education

Parenting Time (English & Spanish)

Parenting Time facilitates communication and planning among custodial and non-custodial parents so that children have safe and consistent access to, and visitation with, both biological parents and family members. Parenting Time works to improve parents' understanding and support of their child's biological, psychological, emotional and social needs, and decrease the negative influences on the child related to parental separation and unresolved issues.

National TransParenting

TransParenting® was developed by Families First in response to requests from family courts to help divorcing parents recognize and minimize the stress of divorce on the entire family. The curriculum, workbooks, training, and certification are sold to agencies throughout the United States. For more information, visit the TransParenting web site.

Seminars for Separating & Divorcing Parents

Seminars educate parents on the emotional reactions of children to separation and divorce and provide guidance for communications with children about divorce and helping them to cope with their emotions. Participants also receive tips for co-parenting and resources for additional information and support.

Children of Separating & Divorcing Parents

Through group discussion, structured exercises and therapeutic games, children experiencing parental separation or divorce are taught and encouraged to verbalize their feelings and learn new coping skills. RollerCoasters® is an eight-week curriculum for children ages 5 to 8 and children ages 9 to 12 (visit: http://www.transparenting.com). Families First also offers What About Me (WAM), a one-time group session that introduces the child to other children experiencing similar situations with the goal of reducing their sense of shame and isolation.

Parenting Classes

These classes will educate parents on the developmental stages of childhood, and the effect of biological and environmental factors on their child's development. Classes also examine parenting styles and practices. Parents receive concrete strategies for establishing appropriate and realistic expectations; responding to and managing their child's needs and behaviors; and developing norms for healthy family communication and teamwork.

School Success

Families First In Schools (FFIS)

FFIS improves parent-child-school communication through a series of structured activities that encourage fun and supportive family interaction, parent networking and community-building, and relationships with school staff. The program is designed to increase academic performance, improve student behavior, and increase parental involvement in the school. FFIS is based on Families And Schools Together (FAST), an internationally-replicated, model program and curriculum for parents and family members serving birth through adolescence and high school.

CHISPA (formerly known as SPARK)

CHISPA assures school readiness and achievement among pre-school age children by engaging parents in home visitation, parent leadership, and pre-K and school transition planning. CHISPA also serves as a Learning Laboratory for communities that are planning or beginning to implement the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta's Early Learning Community-Based Partnerships (ELCBP) and the Smart Start School Readiness Initiative for Children.

Healthy Babies and Moms

Doula

Doulas provide emotional and physical support to pregnant young mothers residing in Fulton and DeKalb Counties before, during and after the birth of her baby. Our bi-lingual Doulas educate young mothers on prenatal and infant care, breast-feeding and mother-baby bonding. The goal of the Doula program is to ensure mothers continue their education during and after pregnancy, and make informed choices about labor, delivery, nutrition, and parenting. For more information on Doulas visit: www.gcapp.org and www.healthconnectone.org

TeenAge Pregnancy and Parenting (TAPP)

TAPP offers comprehensive case management and counseling services to pregnant teens through home and school visitation, service coordination, and parenting education until the first year of the babies' birth. Through TAPP, pregnant and parenting teens remain and progress in school, and learn essential parenting skills in order to become successful parents and adults.