By Sierra Morse, Communications and Marketing Strategist
Somewhere in Arizona today, a stuffed bear is visiting a family for the week. Sent home by their local Family Resource Center (FRC), this teddy bear is a part of a program that builds literacy and connection by inviting families to include the bear in their reading adventures. This is one of the countless creative examples of what FRCs in our state do to strengthen families.
Just under half a year into this job, I've become convinced FRCs are the future of how we support families in this state (and nation). FRCs are community-based hubs that build resilience and knowledge in parents, promote healthy child development, and provide or connect families to resources they may need, all tailored to the families walking through the door.
There's no single solution that could support every family in Arizona. Yet, FRCs come as close as anything I've seen. They hit every protective factor and show up for people raising kids in the ordinary, unglamorous moments of daily life, before things become a crisis instead of after.
FRCs are finally getting more policy attention. Nationally, the Family Prosperity Act would mark the first-ever federal investment in FRCs — just a pilot, so don’t get too excited yet, but a real step forward (more on that in Claire’s reel from May).
Here at home, Prevent Child Abuse Arizona and the Children's Action Alliance are working on a bill to expand investment in early childhood infrastructure, including FRCs, to be introduced in year’s legislative session. Both bills are still in their early stages, but they're proof that the case is landing.
It has to. Arizona has 65 FRCs today, yet 10 of our 15 counties still don't have one. Those communities need them just as much; they just haven't been given a door to walk through yet.
Building that door, statewide, is the job of the Arizona Family Resource Network, which Prevent Child Abuse Arizona coordinates with funding from First Things First. Our annual FRC Summit is one of the clearest ways the network shows up for itself: a chance for staff across the state to swap notes, share ideas, and remember they're part of something bigger. This year's summit was sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona Health Choice and Mercy Care, and the day before, we convened the FRC Exploration Cohort — leaders from communities without FRCs (yet) getting genuinely nerdy about what it would take to start one — sponsored by the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation.
At the summit, we opened with Dr. Jill Stamm, who drew on her book Boosting Brain Power about how a child's brain develops from birth to age 5, a window she calls a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. (No pressure, parents. But also exactly the kind of pressure FRCs exist to help carry.) Staff then scattered into workshops covering everything from Positive Discipline facilitation to national trends to self-care that actually fits real life.
Then there was the Good Idea Poster Walk, where staff showed off what they've built so nobody else has to reinvent it, including, yes, that traveling stuffed bear, living its best life one living room at a time. Every idea came from a center paying attention to its own community, which is the whole model, and why it works so well.
There's no single fix for every family in Arizona. But there's a model that exists to be nimble and responsive to what they need, so they can have more of the moments that make childhood great. Like taking a teddy bear on a reading adventure.