Intercultural Family Services, Inc. (IFSI) will proudly celebrate our 25th year of providing culturally competent, quality health and human services in the spring of 2004. This quarter century of experience has enabled IFSI to recognize that a cookie cutter program can never meet the needs of all of the city's children, youth and families. Our success is rooted in our dedication to respect and serve the diverse cultures that represent the ever-changing mosaic of people, neighborhoods and communities that comprise Philadelphia.

In 2002, IFSI added three new programs- Enhancing Parenting Skills, Giving Asian Parents Support, Youth Employment and Education Program-and restructured older services, such as the Youth and Family Development Program, in order to keep pace with new trends and challenges. 17.7% of Philadelphians have the ability to speak another language other than English according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Similarly, 65,810 individuals reside in linguistically isolated households, in which there is no adult member of the home who speaks only English, or identifies as speaking English "very well" in addition to another language. Thus cultural competence is not a luxury for program development, it is a necessity. At the core of all IFSI programs are: cultural competence, education, self and community empowerment, and access to services and opportunities.

IFSI continually strives to offer innovative programs that address and provide a tenable resolution to the multi-faceted problems that many of our consumers face. Our high quality of service is reflected by the popularity of IFSI services throughout the City, leading to another necessity: expansion. In 2002, IFSI founded a satellite facility in South Philadelphia to better serve its residents by providing parenting workshops, HIV/AIDS prevention education workshops, and a youth delinquency prevention program. Similarly, the number of IFSI staff members has increased twofold with the growth of our Intercultural Behavioral Health Center.

These achievements reflect only a glimmer of the hard work and dedication of IFSI's Board of Directors, staff and even consumers, to assist this non-profit organization in our collaborative mission to embody "Diversity in Action."

Evelyn Marcha-Hidalgo
CEO/Executive Director

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