Boost4Families Vision

The vision of Cass/Mills/Montgomery Boost4Families is to support quality services that are integrated, comprehensive, and family-centered; resulting in nurtured, resilient, healthy, and responsible individuals.

What is Boost4Families?

Boost4Families works with children 0-18 and their parents by providing prevention, early intervention, and family well-being services. These services/programs reduce the likelihood of child abuse, and promote positive family and community relationships.

Boost4Families is a collaboration of State and Federal Grant funds that help ensure that:

• All children be given the best possible start in life, in order to become self-reliant adults;
• Nurtured children become nurturing adults;
• Positive childhood environments create an upward cycle of health, non-violence, and responsibility that is carried forward to each new generation
• A wide array of services must be provided in order to fully address diverse social, emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual needs
• Informed parents and citizens are the best decision-makers for their community.

What is DECAT?

Focuses on “preventive, family-centered, and community-based” approaches to “reduce use of restrictive approaches which rely upon institutional, out-of-home, and out-of-community services”.

These funds serve 5-18 year olds, such as: Before/After School programs, youth mentoring programs, and Teen Parents and the Law programs.

What is Empowerment?

Every child, beginning at birth, will be healthy and successful

• Secure nurturing child care environments (Quality Child Care)
• Children ready to succeed in school (getting children to preschool)
• Safe and Supportive Communities (all programs should focus on this)
• Secure and nurturing families (Parents as Teachers programs)
• Focus was on the 0-5 population: early childhood development and school readiness
• Legislators are aware of research regarding brain development and understand that early childhood is important
• Funding was initially limited to those areas demonstrating a strong history of successful collaboration
• Boost4Families was among the first to receive Empowerment designation and funding
• Empowerment tools can be found at http://www.empowerment.state.ia.us/

Although Empowerment and Decat could have operated separately, the decision was made to keep all activities under one umbrella

INCLEMENT WEATHER

Please listen to the following radio stations to hear of cancellations or postponements for Cass, Mills, Montgomery Local Planning Groups, Subcommittees, and Boost4Families Board meetings:

• KJAN 1220 AM
• KDSM 96.5 FM
• KCSI 95.3 FM
• KMA 960 AM
  

If you have questions about a meeting you are planning on attending please call Michelle Wodtke Franks at: 712-527-1578