With recent grant support from Jamie Daniels Foundation, this local organization can continue and increase its protective factors for children through education, resources and wellness efforts.

By Stacey Winconek

Since 2000, The Family Center has worked to build healthier and happier families. Through its work with local schools and organizations, The Family Center provides free resources to support the needs of those in the Grosse Pointe and Harper Woods communities.

“We also run the Healthy Grosse Pointe & Harper Woods Coalition, which is focused on understanding substance misuse, reducing harm, promoting prevention, and improving mental well-being,” says Jennifer Bingaman, the Executive Director of the Family Center.

Through partnerships with seven school systems that serve 12,350 students, The Family Center has been able to coordinate 30 in-school programs, including “Wellness Days” that promote healthy coping skills and substance use prevention.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the need for programs that focus on healthy coping skills and substance use prevention has increased. In response, the Jamie Daniels Foundation is expanding efforts to support school-aged kids with mindfulness programming, establishing a new partnership with The Family Center.

This partnership adds Grosse Pointe and Harper Woods to the list of communities the Foundation supports with mindfulness programming like those in West Bloomfield, Berkley and Oak Park.

“Many students in Grosse Pointe and Harper Woods experience serious challenges including anxiety and depression, drug and alcohol abuse and addiction, and race-related trauma that have contributed to a widespread mental health crisis,” Bingaman says. “Effects of the pandemic have compounded these problems, eroding the coping mechanisms of even our most emotionally stable teens and creating a health emergency for children at-risk.”

According to the latest community health needs assessment from Beaumont/Corewell Health, increased stress, anxiety, and depression were the leading pandemic-related health concern, followed by access to mental health services for children. In that same assessment, substance misuse was identified as the top priority.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the key to ultimately reducing the risk of substance use disorder is to increase protective factors, such as positive self-image and self-control.

In support of The Family Center, the Jamie Daniels Foundation awarded The Family Center grant funding to coordinate wellness activities in the schools it serves. This includes “Wellness Days” that focus on healthy coping skills through yoga, meditation, breathing exercises and journaling. In addition to that, the grant will be used to build a comprehensive Coalition resources webpage, design Coalition collateral, implement the Parents Who Host Lose The Most campaign and more.

“We receive no state or federal funding and rely on grants and private donors. For two years our substance misuse programs were funded by a grant that is no longer offered,” Bingaman says. “This is our first grant award from the Jamie Daniels Foundation, and thanks to their partnership and support we have the opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of more than 12,000 children.”