Keeping Children Safely With Their Families

Help through a poverty crisis so children can stay safely with family.

Who we serve

Together with Families serves parents and relatives experiencing a crisis of poverty that could lead to child welfare involvement or foster care.

A crisis of poverty looks like this: a family is doing their best, but one missing resource puts the whole household at risk. A bed. A car repair. A month of rent. Left unresolved, that gap can grow into a child protective services case.

Nationally, neglect drives nearly two in three foster care removals. Much of what gets labeled neglect is poverty. We believe poverty should never be the reason a child is separated from their family. Emergency Support exists to resolve the crisis before separation happens.

How Emergency Support works

Most families start with a call to our Warm Line. The Warm Line is a phone line where a real person listens, asks questions, and helps figure out what is standing in the way. Families can call directly. Schools, churches, agencies and other community partners can also connect families to us.

Every crisis is different, so Emergency Support has three pathways. The level of help matches the level of need. Families do not move through the pathways in order. Our team works with each family to find the right level of support from the start.

Pathway 1: Warm Line + Basic Needs

Practical help for an immediate crisis.

Support may include:

• Diapers and baby supplies

• Hygiene and cleaning supplies

• Children's clothing and shoes

• Safe sleeping options for babies

• Other essential items available through our Hub

• Help finding and connecting to the right community resources

• Coordination with community partners

• Limited transportation support when transportation is what is preventing the family from resolving the crisis

When possible, we help identify the right resource, make the connection, and work with the family toward a solution.

Pathway 2: Warm Line + Prevention Funds

Targeted financial help when a specific expense is the barrier between a family staying together and a child welfare case.

Pathway 2 includes everything in Pathway 1, plus the possibility of up to $500 in one-time financial assistance, once every 12 months.

Prevention Funds are not general financial assistance. Being behind on rent or a utility bill does not qualify a family on its own.

Prevention Funds may be considered only when all of the following are true:

• The family is experiencing a crisis of poverty

• The crisis creates a real risk of child protective services involvement or foster care

• A specific financial need is driving that risk

• Other reasonable resources have been explored and cannot resolve the crisis in time

• The payment is expected to resolve or significantly reduce the crisis

• Funding is available

Every Prevention Fund payment answers one question: will this help keep a child safely with family?

Pathway 3: Intensive Care Coordination

Ongoing support for families facing more than one challenge at once.

Some crises cannot be resolved with supplies, connections or a single payment. Eligible families may enroll in Intensive Care Coordination, our most intensive level of support.

Each enrolled family works with one consistent Together with Families team member. Together they build a family-led stability plan with clear, measurable goals. The family decides the goals, priorities and next steps. We help them get there.

Support may include:

• Weekly coaching and check-ins

• Help getting and keeping stable housing

• Basic-needs support

• Transportation support

• Help finding and using community resources

• Advocacy with schools, courts, child welfare and other systems

• Coordination among everyone involved in the family's stability

• Flexible financial assistance tied to the family's stability plan, when appropriate and funding is available

• Regular review of goals and progress

Intensive Care Coordination serves two groups of families.

Family Preservation: keeping children safely with their parents

For parents experiencing conditions caused by poverty that put their children at risk of child welfare involvement or foster care. We work alongside parents to resolve those conditions and build stability so children can stay safely at home.

Kinship Preservation: keeping children safely with their relatives

For grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives raising children. Many relatives say yes overnight, with no warning, no preparation and no extra resources. We help relatives address poverty-related barriers and build the stability needed to keep children safely with family.

Reunification pilot: bringing children safely home

Most of our work happens before a child ever enters foster care. Reunification is the exception.

When a child is already in foster care, Together with Families may provide Intensive Care Coordination to help resolve poverty-related barriers affecting the child's return home. This may include housing, transportation, basic needs and coordination with the professionals involved in the case.

Reunification referrals are accepted only from:

• The Georgia Division of Family and Children Services

• A guardian ad litem, the court-appointed advocate for the child

• An attorney involved in the child welfare case

Families cannot self-refer for reunification support, and strict eligibility requirements apply. Limited space available.

Together with Families does not decide whether or when a child returns home. Those decisions belong to the court and child welfare authorities. Our role is to resolve poverty-related barriers so that when a child can come home, poverty does not stand in the way.

What success looks like

Success is simple to say and hard to do: the crisis is resolved, the child stays safely with family, and the stability holds.

But the story does not end there. Families we serve become part of the community that serves the next family. Parents and relatives who came to us in crisis have returned as volunteers and leaders. That is the model working: crisis, then stability, then sustainability, then family leadership.

The average Together with Families investment in a family is about $1,050. A single year of foster care in Georgia costs about $32,711. Keeping a family together is not only the right outcome for a child. It is the wisest possible use of every dollar.

What we do not do

Clear limits are part of what makes prevention work.

• We are not a rent or utility assistance program.

• We do not provide ongoing monthly financial support.

• We do not investigate families or make child welfare, custody or legal decisions.

• We do not replace the roles of child welfare agencies, courts or attorneys.

One team, one plan

Families in crisis should not have to call organization after organization trying to figure out who can help. We help identify what is standing in the way, connect the right people and resources, and work alongside the family toward a solution. For families in Intensive Care Coordination, one consistent team member coordinates support across every part of life affecting family stability.

Capacity

All support depends on eligibility and available space, supplies and funding.What Happens Next

Emergency support is the beginning, not the end.

Families are invited into our GROW Together community through:

• Family Cafés: shared meals where families connect and build practical skills

• Circles of Support for relative caregivers

As families stabilize, many choose to give back by volunteering, supporting other parents, or stepping into leadership through our paid apprenticeship pathway.

Families who once needed support often return to help others, so more children can stay safely with family.

That is how community works.