Family Foundations (POCAN)

POCAN stands for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect and currently represents ten programs in Wisconsin who share funding through the Department of Health and Family Services Division of Public Health. The following article describes one site from early in POCAN's history. Recent evaluations have shown positive outcomes for participating Wisconsin families. In early 2005 the name was changed to Family Foundations.

Pilot program helps kids get good healthy start
By Renee DuFore Russell
The Reporter

Money Spent on children is money well spent.

That's the view of Wisconsin's Department of Health and Family Services Secretary Helene Nelson, who visited Fond du Lac last week looking for feedback on a state pilot program that operates in Fond du Lac and nine other counties throughout the state.

The Prevention of Childhood Abuse and Neglect (POCAN), now called Family Foundations, program helps parents learn how to create nurturing environments for their children. Grant money covers the project, which is designed to help families stay out of the social services or corrections systems in the long run.

The program has sent about $112,000 a year to the county, said Sandy Fryda, a nurse who coordinates the county's Maternal and Child Health program. That's about half of what it actually takes to operate the program at its current level, with the county putting in the rest of the funding.

"We just pay the price later (through jail and court costs) if kids don't get a good healthy start," said Nelson.

POCAN – where the acronym locally stands for the softer name Promoting Opportunities to Care and Nurture – is aimed at families deemed to be at high risk because of parental disabilities, lack coping skills or lack of a support system for a single parent, as well as poverty and other factors detrimental to children.

Whatever it's called, POCAN is a good investment, Nelson said. IT's part of Gov. Jim Doyle's "Kids First" initiative and it aims to make children's environments as safe and nurturing as they can be, to identify children at risk and to give them a boost in getting ready to go to school.

While children nibbled on fruit and cake served at the lunch, one first-time mother in the program said she's isolated from her family and needs a support system.

She has many questions about baby care and sometimes just needs a sympathetic person that she can "vent" to when her baby is fussy or not feeling well.

All participants at Tuesday's feedback session said they got good referrals and links to other community programs, such as Birth to Three and Parents as Teachers, to get their children off to good starts.

To participate in Family Foundations, a family must also be eligible and enrolled in medical assistance, including Healthy Start and Badger Care.

Families get help with learning hands-on baby care, learning what are appropriate developmental skills and milestones in baby's life; learning good games to play with toddlers; coping skills, self-esteem and self-reliance. Home visits play a big role.

Fond du Lac County's program "works well," Nelson said, and is evidence that POCAN should be expanded to more counties in Wisconsin

Family Foundation Library: Reserved for POCAN Staff