Family Support Program

Peer Support. Basic Needs. Access to Resources. Community

We serve children and their families who experiencing a crisis of poverty— referred by schools or Child Protective Services and at risk of involvement with child welfare system and foster care.

Our Family Support Program is designed to stabilize families who are experiencing a crisis of poverty quickly and walk with them toward long-term stability and community.

Here’s how it works:

Stabilization with Support
Families are paired with a trained peer support specialist—someone who’s been there—who meets with them weekly for three months and provides flexible financial assistance and other support to meet immediate needs. Together, they work on urgent needs like housing, utilities, child care, transportation, health care, and mental health support, while creating personalized goals that build toward stability.

Access to Resources & System Navigation
Our Peer Support Specialists are trained to help families navigate complex systems and access practical support through our growing ecosystem of partners—including nonprofits, businesses, and community members. By working together, we create a one-stop shop where families can get what they need before a poverty crisis escalates into foster care.

Community, Connection, & Leadership
Once stabilized, families stay connected through Family Cafés, events, and support groups led by our trained apprentices, parents, kinship caregivers, and youth with shared lived experience.

Those ready to lead can join our 9-month paid Apprenticeship Training Program—open to youth, parents, and kinship caregivers—where they learn how to shape and lead the very work they once needed.

All of this takes place at The HUB—Healing, Uplifting, and Belonging—our family resource center where families can heal, feel uplifted, and know they belong.

KinCare Program

Rapid Response. Peer Support. Keeping Children with Family.

When a parent can’t care for their child, it’s often a relative—a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or older sibling—who steps up with little to no notice. That child may arrive with nothing. But they shouldn’t arrive to nothing.

Our KinCare Program exists to support children placed with relatives who are experiencing a crisis of poverty to prevent that crisis from leading to family separation or foster care. We respond within 24–48 hours to help stabilize the home and meet each child’s immediate needs. Every child receives a full setup: a new bed, new bedding, a new toy, and the essentials—clothing, food, hygiene supplies, and more—so they feel safe, seen, and cared for.

From there, we work alongside the kinship caregiver to help them stabilize the household. Each family is matched with a Kinship Navigator—a trained peer with lived experience—who meets with them weekly for three months to help them navigate government systems, set goals, provide flexible financial support, and connect them to housing, legal, transportation, healthcare, and child care resources. Together with our network of nonprofit, business, and community partners, we serve as a one-stop hub for families at risk of child-family separation.

Families are invited to join our community through Family Cafés, peer support groups led by our apprentices, and special events. Those ready to lead can apply for our paid Apprenticeship Training Program—open to youth (17 and over), parents, and kinship caregivers—to learn and practice leading and shaping the very work that once supported them.

At Together with Families, we believe poverty should never be the reason a child is separated from their people who know and love them. Our KinCare Program makes sure they don’t have to be.

Apprenticeship Training Program

From Lived Experience to Leadership

Our Paid Apprenticeship Training Program is a 9-month opportunity for youth (age 17+), kinship caregivers, and parents who have completed one of our support programs and are ready to lead. This isn’t just job training—it’s a pathway to purpose, power, and community impact.

Apprentices are paid to grow, learn, and lead alongside Together with Families staff. Through weekly training and hands-on experience, first-year apprentices build real-world, transferable skills in areas like:

• Peer support and mentorship

• Mental health and wellness

• Workforce readiness

• Advocacy and storytelling

• Navigating systems

• Parenting and leadership development

• Financial and Technical skills

After successfully completing the first year, apprentices may be invited to continue as second- and third-year apprentices, becoming part of our Design Team—helping to co-create, test, and lead the very programs they once participated in. Apprentices play a key role in shaping and leading support groups, Family Cafés, outreach efforts, and program innovation.

This is not charity. This is community-powered change—raising up leaders from the families and neighborhoods most impacted.

Because who better to lead the work than those who have lived it?