The mission of FAMILIES PLUS is to nurture at-risk children in the Delta County area. Our model program provides mentors, caring community support, and training to help these children build a healthy future. Their families are supported also in order to best provide for these children.

The children that FAMILIES PLUS serves live in families with severe chronic problems and inadequate resources. Because of the population served, FAMILIES PLUS has special characteristics as a child mentoring program.

• First, the support systems we build around children are meant to be long term.
• Second, these support systems are comprised primarily of volunteers.
• Third, volunteer family mentors and natural families both have access to a licensed mental health professional.
• Finally, FAMILIES PLUS is built upon solid research in prevention strategies and is itself being researched using a control-group design. Each of these characteristics is a strength of our family mentoring model.

Our Strategic Plan 2009-20012 enables us to reach more high-risk children with the power of an increasing pool of trained volunteers and professionals. It also challenges us to educate the community on the needs of at-risk children, to collaborate with other organizations serving children and to continue to conduct valid and helpful research on the impacts of family mentoring.

By completing this Plan, FAMILIES PLUS will build an increasingly effective organization capable of realizing our vision: that every child enters adulthood free of addictions, poverty, violence, under-education or emotional trauma.

FAMILIES PLUS is a child-centered organization promoting healthy families – one child at a time.

Delta County, Colorado is filled with caring people. That’s why Delta County is the birth place of “Family Mentoring”.

Family mentoring is a unique concept; instead of matching a child with one adult who spends some extra time with that child, the child is instead matched with a mentoring family, where he/she can participate in a variety of family experiences. Family mentoring also means providing volunteers to nurture the child’s natural family.

Many families lack the extensive support they will need due to circumstances that they cannot remedy.

FAMILIES PLUS helps provide families with community volunteers to create a support network that these families lack.

A Family Friend: This is a community volunteer who takes on the role of a regular friend to the parents and the whole family.

• stays in contact with the parents and offers support.
• this friend assists the natural family to find goods and services that the members of the child’s natural family need.

• invites the child to spend time with their family, doing ordinary family activities. The amount of time can vary, but the family is consistent about having regular contact with the child.
• gets involved with the child’s education needs by tutoring them, attending parents conferences, and  rewarding good school performance.
• may also help them get enrolled in children’s activities such as soccer, scouting programs, or church groups

A Mentoring Manager:
This is a trained mental health care professional that is assigned to the child and both families to assist them in getting their relationship to stay on a positive track. This professional acts as a consultant to all the adults involved in the child’s life to support the child’s mental health needs.

A Willing Teacher:
The child’s teacher is asked to expend extra time and energy to communicate with the therapist and parents to help them motivate and organize the child.

Mini-Mentors:
These adults or adolescents offer to spend intermittent time with the child doing something that they themselves particularly enjoy such as fishing, dance, computers etc. These volunteers help build skills and self-esteem in the children. They see the child at least six times a year but often much more.

A Financial Supporter for the Child:
This is an individual or an organization that will defray the costs of the professional Mentoring Manager, the physical needs of the child, the Mentoring Family costs that they cannot cover, and experiences for the child like summer camp.

115 Grand Ave. Ste. 2 - Delta, Colorado - 81416 - (970)874-0464