Web posted
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Family Life Services finds niche in caring
BBy CHRIS ROBINETTE
Traveler Correspondent
There are many ways for an organization to serve its community. Each organization finds its niche for Family Life Services that niche happens to be marriage, family and healthy pregnancies.
FLS hosts a yearly banquet to raise funds and celebrate the efforts of its volunteers and board members in supporting Arkansas City. This year's banquet featured several speakers and a performance by the Walnut Valley Men's Choir.
"It went really well," said Tim Durham, executive director of Family Life Services. "It's a lot of work to put a banquet on, but it's something we kind of do for the community."
People were encouraged to donate, though Durham said there wasn't "hard pressure" to donate.
Family Life Services offers alternatives to abortions.
Funds are important to FLS. Every year it receives a grant that matches the donations the organization receives. The grant also gives FLS $20 an hour for its volunteers.
All the donated money returns to the community through FLS' programs, according to Durham. FLS attempts to help Arkansas City in several different ways: family and marriage counseling, seminars on subjects like depression and marriage and classes on anger management and parenting.
Two of the more focused programs are InSight and Healthy Beginnings, a program dedicated to helping women with pregnancy.
Women are able to set up appointments to use the 4D sonogram through InSight. The sonogram shows the fetus in extreme detail. Facial features and hands are easily viewable and recognizable. It helps women with "maternal bonding," said Durham, making them more likely to keep the child if they were considering an abortion
Coordinator for Healthy Beginnings Leveta Adams said that though the sonogram is used to confirm a pregnancy, clients are immediately referred to a doctor if anything unusual in the pregnancy is found.
InSight is funded through individual contributions, which paid for the sonogram, according to Adams.
The Healthy Beginnings program educates women on the process of pregnancy and giving birth. Participants meet with a social worker once a week. They watch videos and do worksheets, part of the "Earn While You Learn" prenatal curriculum. The curriculum covers a wide range of information, from parenting skills to CPR.
When women complete the work they receive what FLS calls "mommy money," which can be used to buy items from the New Arrival Mommy Store at FLS.
Over 600 women have gone through the program since it started in 2000; there are 90 women in the program right now. Healthy Beginnings is funded by a matching grant through the Senator Stan Clark pregnancy maintenance initiative, which has brought $90,000 into Cowley County to help pregnant women, according to Adams.
While FLS tries to share resources with other organizations, it still works within its own niche to provide to the community.
"What we try to is to provide services that are not duplicated by other community organizations," said Durham. But these organizations rely on one another and routinely refer to clients to other organizations for help.
FLS also works as a licensed adoption agency. Though FLS is a non-profit agency, it does charge a fee for the adoption process. FLS asks a pretty small fee as opposed to regular agencies, according to Durham.
When asked about future expansion, Durham said that the main focus is on the programs that FLS offers right now.
"We just want to improve the services that we're doing," said Durham. But that doesn't mean growth for FLS is stagnant.
"We always have . . . plenty of ideas," he said.
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