Family Resource Centers
What is a FRC?
Family Resource Centers (FRCs) serve as welcoming and inclusive hubs of services and opportunities designed to strengthen families. They are community focused, reflecting and responding to the specific needs, cultures and interests of those they serve by providing a unique combination of programming and services tailored to the families within their service area at no or low cost.
FRCs are a critical resource for Wisconsin families.
FRCs use a primary prevention approach offering strengths-based services universally to all families in their service area and grounding their practice in the
five protective factors. FRC services include educational opportunities for parents and caregivers of children that provide tools, and strategies to promote healthy child development and enhance parenting competence.
FRCs across Wisconsin offer five core categories of services:
- Parenting Supports
- Resource and Navigation Services
- Child Development Activities
- Parent Leadership Development
- Community Engagement
FRCs also function as a bridge by connecting caregivers to one another and to valuable information about community resources. FRCs value partnerships to meet the wide and varied needs of the families they serve. They link families with community-based resources and serve as a referral source for families to more intensive or targeted services outside of those they offer. The majority of FRCs in the state belong to a network called Thriving Wisconsin, comprised of 39 member agencies. Thriving Wisconsin facilitates the interaction of network members to build connection across the state and sets the
standards of quality for FRCs in Wisconsin.
In 2021 the Prevention Board partnered with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Institute for Child and Family Well Being to initiate a research project, called Strong and Stable Families Study to explore the impact of FRCs on Wisconsin families. This study is ongoing, but the findings from the initial phase of the project can be found in the issue brief
Strengthening Wisconsin’s Family Resource Centers.
Resources