Family Focus Aurora

News

August 26: Open House

Family Focus Aurora will hold an open house on Thursday, August 26, from 3 to 6 p.m. Come one, come all, see our new location and meet our Board members and staff. For more information, call the Aurora Family Focus Center (630-844-2550) or e-mail aurora@family-focus.org.

Zoomba Classes

We are now offering classes in Zoomba, a type of dance exercise, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Classes began August 10. Call the Aurora Family Focus Center (630-844-2550) for more information, or e-mail aurora@family-focus.org.

We've moved!

Our new address is: 550 Second Street, Aurora, IL 60505. Our telephone number remains the same: 630-844-2550.

Family Focus Aurora Awarded Community Foundation Grant

The Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley has awarded Family Focus Aurora a $10,000 grant to purchase a new computer server. A new server increases our capacity to serve participants and reach new families.

Census Outreach Campaign: Calling all volunteers
(Click here for event flyer.)

In the 2000 Census, the Aurora community was grossly undercounted. To keep that from happening again, Family Focus Aurora is conducting a Census 2010 Outreach Campaign to educate our families about the importance of participating in the census. We need volunteers to go door to door, making sure all residents are counted. Volunteers knock on doors Monday-Thursday 3:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.

To volunteer, or for more information about Family Focus Aurora's efforts, please call 630-844-2550 or e-mail nai@family-focus.org . For more information about the 2010 census, please go to www.2010census.gov

(For more Family Focus Aurora news, click here to read our newsletter.)

Our Programs

Family Focus Aurora is Aurora’s first-ever comprehensive family support center for Spanish-speaking families. It features an extensive arts program for teens and provides the only area after-school program that includes bus transportation.

Citizenship, Prevention Initiative, After-School Program

Making Citizenship Possible
Family Focus Aurora is playing a lead role in the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights’ New Americans Initiative in the Aurora, Joliet, and Elgin areas. Staff provides immigrants seeking citizenship with outreach, civic engagement classes, assistance with citizenship applications, and legal support, in partnership with Centro Cristo Rey and Heartland Alliance’s Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center.

At New American Initiative Citizenship Rallies, held once a month at various locations around the Aurora- Elgin-Joliet area, immigrants can get the personalized information they need. Should they apply? How to apply? How to get ESL or citizenship classes? Family Focus staff and volunteer lawyers find the right answers for each person. In order to help 1,000 immigrants enter the citizenship pipeline during the first year of the program, Family Focus Aurora is conducting extensive outreach to churches, schools and soccer leagues as well as holding workshops and going door-to-door.

Need help with citizenship? Contact Family Focus Aurora .

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Prevention Initiative Program Helps Young Children and their Parents

Family Focus Aurora offers Prevention Initiative programming for children ages 0-3 and their parents. Serving the families of East Aurora, the new Family Focus program addresses obstacles immigrant parents face in preparing their children for success in school.

The Aurora Center offers individual case management for families, early literacy training, and support groups and home visits for parents of young children. While parents meet for group sessions, attend parenting skills training and get support for their individual concerns, their children are engaged in developmentally appropriate activities.

Thanks to a team-building session supported by the Chicago Community Trust, Family Focus Aurora was able to draw on the collective expertise of other Family Focus centers with existing 0-3 programs for immigrant families when designing a program geared to the needs of East Aurora. This program, supported by funding from the Illinois State Board of Education ’s Prevention Initiative, is designed to assist Latino immigrant families in preparing their children for school and offer them easy access to developmentally appropriate learning experiences for their children.

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After School Program Expanded, Enriched
With new multi-year Teen Reach funding from the Department of Human Services, Family Focus Aurora has expanded its after school offerings. The Aurora Center reintroduced after school services to East Aurora High School, where college students and volunteers work with teens one-on-one. After school programming at Simmons and Waldo middle schools were also opened to 15 more children at each site. Using the Family Focus van, the center continues to offer a safe ride home to after school partiticipants.

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To read the recent issues of our newsletter, click on the links below:

Family Focus Ink - July 2009	Family Focus Ink - January 2009
Healthy Families/Parents Too Soon Newsletter - Summer 2008	Family Focus Ink - September 2006

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