For more than 20 years, Family Support has helped Allegheny County’s children achieve brighter futures.
In the early 1990s, a group of independent neighborhood-based human service agencies came together around a shared philosophy and approach to working with families. This small group of visionaries committed to challenging the status quo of fragmented, deficit-based, and expensive yet seemingly ineffective interventions. Instead, they embraced holistic, multi-generational, and outcome-oriented strategies to support and strengthen families. They adopted a shared set of guiding principles, secured an initial wave of funding from the foundation community, and set out to change the human services landscape in Allegheny County.
In 1994, the Family Support Policy Board was born. The Policy Board brings parent leaders to the table with other community stakeholders such as public and private funders, elected officials, and community collaborators. By including parents as important contributors to the decision making process on family support initiatives, the Policy Board soon became a national model for parent leadership and governance.
Two decades later, Family Health Services is a robust network of 26 Family Support Centers and 11 lead agencies, with primary funding and leadership from the Department of Human Services. We now serve close to 6000 children and their families every year.
