DEPARTMENTS

Department of Family-Based Services provide direct services to children, youth and families such as, Services to Children in Their Own Homes (SCOH), Family Preservation and Youth and Family Development Program (YFDP).

Services to Children in Their Own Homes (SCOH): IFSI continues to be the largest SCOH provider in the City of Philadelphia for 2003. IFSI provided services to 685 families, with a monthly average of 348 clients. IFSI received emergency funds for 45 families who required urgent financial or living assistance, which helped to pay for utility bills, rental payments/securitydeposits, and even purchased refrigerators.

Family Preservation: IFSI's Family Preservation provided intensive in home support services in 24 at-risk families in 2003. Nine families were discharged from Family Preservation services, and 15 of cases were referred to SCOH services for further support. Eight families received funds from IFSI's Family Preservation program to support the stability of their home or finances. Three families received a combination of Kmart and Sears gift certificates to purchase school uniforms for their children.

Enhancing Parenting Skills: The Enhancing Parenting Skills program teaches families to understand, identify and overcome circumstances related to child abuse and neglect, youth developmental stages, child nutrition, childhood illnesses and immunizations, discipline, and sexual abuse. This program supports multi-ethnic and multi-lingual families throughout Philadelphia while providing effective ways to teach and guide children ages 0-18 years. Weekly sessions are held at the West and South Philadelphia sites, and off-site to transitional housing residents around the city. Transportation, childcare, meals, and access to emergency food and clothing are offered to participants. Guest speakers, who are experts in childcare and parenting, present helpful scenarios and solutions. Upon completion of the 10-week session, participants commemorate their experience during a formal graduation ceremony where they receive a certificate noting their success.

In 2003, 181 parents and children received services from the Enhancing Parenting Skills program. 68 parents completed the 10-workshop course and graduated in a special cap and gown ceremony honoring their achievement with their families on hand.

Giving Asian Parents Support (GAPS): The Giving Asian Parents Support (GAPS) program is a major child abuse and neglect prevention effort offering culturally and linguistically appropriate outreach and home-based parenting support and education to Asian immigrant and refugee families with children ages from 0-5 years in West and Southwest Philadelphia. This three-year pilot program is currently funded by a generous grant from the Children's Trust Fund, and will hopefully be expanded at the end of the contract year 2005. Since its inception in November 2002, the GAPS program has hosted house parties, conducted home visits, performed extensive outreach using peer educators and referrals, and offered language specific parenting classes to high-risk, non-English speaking Cambodian, Vietnamese and Chinese families. Spearheaded by Ms. Diep-Hoang, an IFSI veteran, the GAPS program has seen increased enrollment rates and name recognition among Asian families and organizations geared towards supporting Asian distinctiveness in America.

Department of Intercultural Behavioral Health Center consist of:

Outpatient Services: In 2003, Outpatient Services served an average of 30 cases per day, and an average of 412 active cases per month. Statistics indicate that 94.7% of outpatient consumers are on Medical Assistance and 5.3% are privately insured. In April 2003, IBHC's Outpatient Services was credentialed by Magellan Behavioral Health to provide therapeutic services to Medical Assistance recipients residing in Delaware County.

Wraparound/Behavioral Health Rehabilitative Services: Since May 2002, IBHC's Wraparound/BHR services which provides intense and continuous therapy to troubled children and youth has grown dramatically. 166 children and youth received these services in a school, community and home environment in 2003. All Wraparound/BHR services are approved by Philadelphia's Community Behavioral Health.

Asian Behavioral Health Project:  In Summer 2003, Pennsylvania's Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS) recognized IFSI's Asian Behavioral Health Project with funding to assist Asian immigrants and refugees to address their immediate social, medical and physical needs which may be barriers to improving their behavioral health. The program staff provides education, advocacy and therapeutic services to combat traditional medical beliefs, stigmatization of the mentally ill, and distrust of outsiders and unfamiliar institutions.

IFSI became aware of behavioral health problems affecting Asian refugees through our social workers, who reported difficulties helping Asian families to improve the safety and health of a child, and the stability of the family. These Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian and Hmong individuals and families arrived in United States after dangerous escapes to freedom and long, often demoralizing stays in refugee camps due to the years of war and political instability in the Indochina region. Many refugees experience flashbacks of traumatic experiences, feelings of helplessness, sleep disorders, and withdrawal from social activities, but do not associate these problems with their experiences of violence, torture, starvation and political persecution. Issues with cultural adjustment to a new life including limited English proficiency and unfamiliarity with American traditions also impacted refugee families' ability to help themselves.

Trust and communication are key principals to the Asian Behavioral Health Project. In the past year, the program has increased the percentage of Asian individuals who came for an initial assessment appointment from 10% to 15.9% of those outreached and referred. Also approximately two-thirds of the individuals who come for an initial visit continue to keep the majority of their scheduled appointments. IFSI's proudest achievement is that an increasing number of referrals to the program are made by the word of mouth of our current consumers.

 Special Projects and Programs

Healthy Start South Outreach Team: In 2003, Healthy Start South Outreach Team provided outreach, education and low-level case management services to 366 pregnant parenting women with infants in West and Southwest Philadelphia. The team connects perinatal clients to prenatal care, dental care, postpartum care, family planning, well-baby care services, behavioral health services, and age appropriate immunization services through appropriate referrals to a specific source of ongoing primary care, and other related services.

Housing Counseling: The Housing Counseling program is IFSI's longest existing program. Our housing counselors have provided services to 314 families in 2003, including assistance with pre- and post-renting, rental delinquency/ default, post-purchase counseling, first-time mortgage counseling, antipredatory lending and mortgage default and delinquency counseling.

On May 14, 2003, IFSI's Housing Counseling program was awarded a grant to enhance housing counseling services and provide a subsidy towards home re-inspection and settlement costs for potential homeowners in University City/West Philadelphia by the University City Neighborhood Partnership Fund, a collaboration between Citizens Bank and the University of Pennsylvania.

Preventing HIV/AIDS in Asian Communities through Education: The Preventing HIV/AIDS in Asian Communities through Education (PHACE) program seeks to educate Asian/Pacific Islander adults and teens, with an emphasis on prevention and risk reduction information about HIV/AIDS throughout the city of Philadelphia and Delaware County. “

In 2003, PHACE educated over 1,362 API individuals in Philadelphia and 734 API individuals in Delaware County through presentations, workshops and the outreach activities conducted by staff members, and adult and teen peer educators.”

Music & Mentorship Program: Music & Mentorship (M&M) program is a community-based initiative that offers music and dance lessons to community children and adults for a fee of $5 per session. In 2003, M&M expanded their roster of instruction to include violin, piano, African drumming, guitar and modern dance.

The M&M program held their end of the year Spring Musicale on June 7, 2003. The programme featured performances by 43 students who displayed their talents in African drums, piano, guitar, violin and dance-13 of whom are adults.

Intercultural Arts Summer Day Camp: The 2003 Intercultural Arts Summer Camp finale showcased the talents of 60 campers, ages 5-12, on August 15, 2003. Family, friends and IFSI staff enjoyed a culminating performance with the theme of "Exploring our World through Culture." The finale featured an interpretive dance routine, a demonstration of their knowledge of geography-"The 50 States Song," and multiplication tables from 1 to 13, as well as songs in Mandarin Chinese, Kiswahili, French, and Spanish.

Language Interpretation and Pronunciation Services (LIPS): LIPS coordinates language interpretation servicesfor IFSI programs and other public agencies, including the Department of Human Services and Community Behavioral Health. LIPS offers services in 7 primary languages and over 10 dialects, of which the most popular are Cambodian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and two dialects of Chinese: Mandarin and Cantonese.  

English for Speakers of Other Languages: Funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Education has allowed the Center for Literacy to collaborate with IFSI to provide ESOL classes for the West Philadelphia community. Currently, we offer two levels of instruction for beginner and intermediate speakers, which are provided at no cost to the consumer. Over 220 students participated in these free classes in 2003, including individuals from Afghanistan, Oman, Taiwan, Cameroon, Ukraine and Myanmar.

Emergency Food Pantry:  Each year IFSI distributes food to over 1000 persons throughout Philadelphia. Through its emergency food pantry, adults and children receive non-prepared food items. Qualifying clients and residents receive a three-day supply of groceries to assist them.

Clothing Boutique: IFSI's Clothing Boutique welcomes donations from private individuals and organizations. Nearly 100 families have benefited from this resource in 2003.

Clothing is available to all IFSI consumers, and is primarily utilized by families involved in the Services to Children in their Own Homes and Enhancing Parenting Skills programs.

Department of Intercultural Behavioral Health Center includes:

Youth Employment & Education Program: YEEP assisted 51 youth participants to develop their literacy, math and life skills in classrooms of the Community College of Philadelphia and in a real life setting. According to pre-test results, 84% of YPEP participants scored below their below their assigned grade level-an average of 4.98 grades for math and 4.6 grades for reading. Follow-up testing revealed that 42 (82%) of the 51 active participants improved their reading and math scores by 0.1 to 4.5 grade levels.

All participants must complete workshops focusing on the skills needed to create their own resume, developed interview skills through roleplay sessions, and learned how to present themselves to employers in an appropriate and professional manner, before work-based learning placement. Youth who completed their preparation and deemed ready were provided work experiences in their field of career interest.

Youth & Family Development Program-West: IFSI's YFDP-West program provides intensive delinquency prevention services for 10-17 year olds in West Philadelphia, who are delinquent, chronically truant, first-time offending youth with minor charges, but who have not been formally adjudicated in Family Court. Youth are referred to the program from the Youth Aid Panel, Truancy Court, Family Court or the Department of Human Services. YFDP-West programming includes life skills workshops, computer, team sports, academic remediation and teamwork building activities in order to preclude further involvement in the juvenile justice system.

Youth & Family Development Program-South: Spawned from its base program in West Philadelphia, the new YFDP-South program is designed for 10-17-year olds in the South Philadelphia community who have been in the juvenile justice system because of delinquency or truancy.

Like its ancestor, YFDP-South offers academics, life and employment skills, computer assisted learning activities, recreational activities, intensive case management and advocacy, and behavioral health support for teens after school and during the summer school break.

The participants are encouraged to understand and accept that education and school attendance are important, and that crime does not pay. Youth successfully work toward realizing their potential in many areas. They are involved in the Philadelphia Mural Arts program, attend cultural and sports events, compete for scholarships, and learn to nurture their own previously undiscovered talents. YFDP-South helps them to further realize the fruits of their participation during a culminating performance where they accent their accomplishments before family and friends.

Summer Career Exploration Program: The Funders' Collaborative funds this 6-week program that matches youth to work-based learning opportunities related to their career interests. Eligible youth must have completed 10th grade and must be in good academic standing.

A total of 31 youth completed the program on August 15, 2003. Summer Career Exploration Program (SCEP) youth were placed in 18 worksites in the medical, computer technology, entrepreneurial, education, and childcare fields. SCEP youth visited the University of Pennsylvania on August 6 2003, and traveled to LehighUniversity on August 13, 2003.

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