Caring Communities

Caring Communities is dedicated to providing the Foothills community coordination of programs readily available to those living in our neighborhood. There are a number of programs offered through our Faith-based community, schools, local businesses, and agencies.

Caring Communities can work for you when you need help accessing these resources. Caring Communities is a program focused on empowering and strengthening youth and families. The Caring Communities Family Support Specialist will help identify the needs of the family and work with the family to access the appropriate need based service.

When you see the hand symbol representing Caring Communities, you know we our focused on empowering our families though healthy communities.

Caring Communities' Inception

In May of 2009, the first community forum was held to discuss the gaps in services for health and safety of our families and our community. The forum was facilitated and sponsored by the Foothills Community Foundation (FCF). This forum was the first of many developed to identify the need and ways of bringing services and resources to the children and family in the Foothills community.

In September of 2009, Caring Communities, created the Advisory Council. The council members included individuals representing various organizations in the community that had existing programs that address health and safety issues. The goal of the council is to assist in identifying what programs could benefit from Caring Communities mission.

In the months of October and November of 2009, data on risk behaviors and protective factors were collected from student surveys. Surveys were completed with the help and assistance of our community partners, Cave Creek Unified School District (CCUSD) and Paradise Valley Community College (PVCC).

In November and December of 2009, the data collected from the surveys were used to identify gaps in services in the community. Caring Communities began to take shape in the beginning of the 2010 year with continued assessment and advisement with the Advisory Council's community members.

Mission

Our mission is to build healthy communities through creating strong, healthy families.

Vision

Caring Communities’ vision is to provide guidance and resources for youth and families through prevention, intervention, and education in the areas of:

• Family/parenting
• Social issues/peer relationships
• Seminars/education; and
• Substance abuse/use
   

Caring Communities is currently...

• Identifying resources that target community needs and help combat prevalent youth problems.
• Identifying education programs that promote positive behavior in youth.
• Serving as a hub to inform community members of existing community resources and future opportunities and programs.
• Strengthening family relationships by providing resources already in the community and/or coordination with Family Support Specialist to identify assistance that is family specific.

Caring Communities has now identified a Family Support Specialist (FSS) is offering support to the community by:

Providing resources to families and youth that may not be known in the community and can be accessed with assistance from the FSS;

• Functioning as a community liaison for all programs available to the community
• Locating and identifying gaps in the resources through community outreach and collaboration with providers outside of the Foothills community area
• Working diligently to identify specialized services that help strengthen families' specific need
• Following through with action steps in a timely and efficient manner to ensure the family feels their needs have been met
• Keeping updated calendars of events by different faith-based organizations, community events, and school programs geared towards assisting our communities youth

Caring Communities will continue to offer updated information on upcoming events in the community and ongoing updates of educational websites that address a variety of different issues effecting youth and families in our community.

Please feel free to contact the Family Support Specialist to provide information to add to the webpage or to contact with questions regarding helping to get you the supports and resources you need.