FamilyWise Services

Our mission is strengthening families by promoting the safety, stability, and wellbeing of children. Our vision is for a world where every child thrives.

The families we serve have experienced significant trauma and are often locked in multi-generational cycles of poverty and family violence, challenges. Through our trauma-informed programs—parent education, teen parenting, supervised visitation, and more—we aim to empower families to meet those challenges. We also work alongside family service providers, providing education and resources to help them be responsive to the needs of vulnerable families. As we work toward our vision of a community where every child thrives, we are focused on these organization-wide goals:

• Reduce or eliminate child abuse or neglect by parents
• Ensure parenting skills maintain the safety and well-being of children
• Help youth reach age-appropriate developmental levels
• Connect families to community resources that ensure sustained success
• Increase the self-efficacy of families
• Equip families to cope with stress, solve problems, and break cycles of trauma

FamilyWise serves families across the state of Minnesota by providing trauma-informed support that builds safety, stability, and resilience among the parents, caregivers, children, and communities taking part in our programs.

Positive parent-child relationships and parenting education are critical to the physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and language development of children. As a multi-service agency, FamilyWise focuses on child and family development and community building enhanced by culturally competent services that acknowledge the changing social landscape of area communities. This approach includes opportunities for positive intervention and the recognition that healthy child development is strongly affected by parenting and the home environment.

Our programs focus on natural supports, experiential learning, education, and a therapeutic approach with expertise in trauma-informed care. Each program promotes self-efficacy by working to improve the family’s recognition of their own resilience and the availability of external and professional supports. The results create personal initiative in balance with systems that fulfill the FamilyWise mission to strengthen families and the community.

FamilyWise promotes safety and stability by providing education and support services to parents and families, creating a deep continuum of services and a circle of care that wraps around families to keep children safe and healthy. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study and other research demonstrate that exposure to adversity early in life can lead to negative outcomes in adulthood. To help families change that course, our programs focus on natural supports, experiential learning, and a strengths-based approach with expertise in trauma-informed care. Each program promotes self-efficacy by working to improve the family’s recognition of their own resilience, which sets up both generations—parents and their children—for long-term success.

MCCC programs now operate under the FamilyWise name, and FamilyWise has become the Minnesota chapter of Prevent Child Abuse America and the National Circle of Parents. Key programs include:


Bright Beginnings: Voluntary program for teen parents age 14-22 with history of out-of-home placement or justice system involvement. Adolescents receive life skills training, parent education, and mentoring.

Adult Parent Education: Support for families at risk of experiencing abuse or neglect. Guides parents to greater understand their role in providing a safe environment for children.

Supervised Parenting: In cases of family separation or family violence, we offer Supervised Visits or Safe Exchanges between non-custodial parents and their children in a safe environment. FamilyWise is the largest provider of these services in Minnesota.

Wraparound: Strongly-credentialed provider of High-Fidelity Wraparound in the Twin Cities, uses evidence-based elements of family voice and choice and "wrapping" supports around families.

First Step: Highly accredited Early Childhood Development Education Center.

Tribal NEAR Communities: broadens understanding of trauma—Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), historical trauma, and the impact of colonization—and its relationship to individual and community health and wellbeing in our tribal communities

NEAR Communities: Using the national Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Interface curriculum, we build the capacity of community members as certified ACE Interface Presenters so they are empowered to raise awareness about the effects of trauma and the promise of prevention and resilience in their communities. The initiative shares neurobiology, epigenetics, ACEs, and resilience (NEAR) research to catalyze individual and community-driven actions that foster understanding, hope and healing.

Circle of Parents: a strength-based parenting program that offers peer-led circles of support where parents can share challenges and successes and build their own resilience.

FamilyWise has been keeping children safe and helping families lead stable, healthy, and productive lives since 1976. In July 2020, FamilyWise merged with longtime partner Minnesota Communities Caring for Children (MCCC). By uniting with MCCC, a leader in child abuse prevention and parent empowerment, FamilyWise expands its services statewide and creates an even stronger circle of support around the families and communities we serve.

In terms of defining impact at a high level, the individuals and families served by FamilyWise are successful when they have halted the damaging cycles of violence and poverty. Their successful experiences with FamilyWise’s system of integrated services lessen the community isolation created by family trauma, and begin to repair trust in social systems and the benefits of community participation. In 2019, FamilyWise served 2,512 individuals across 1,018 households through our teen parenting, parent education, and wraparound services, with our programs achieving the following impact and outcomes:
• 89% of parent interactions maintained safety and well-being.
• 98% of supervised parent visits occurred without incidence of violence or unsafe circumstances for the families we serve.
• 92% of families were connected to community resources.
• 94% of children met developmental milestones.
• 76% of children were living in a community setting upon exiting from program.
• 74% of families reached self-efficacy.

Data shows that Circle of Parents successfully increases protective factors—attributes that strengthen families and reduce the likelihood that child abuse will occur. In a 2019 survey, nearly all participants (99%) reported that they have gained additional supportive contacts as a result of the program. The majority of parents report that they have become more aware of local family resources, better understand childhood development, and interact more positively with their children (85%-94%) as a result of Circle of Parents.

Similarly, our NEAR programs have had measurable impact in creating supportive, receptive, and responsive communities for families to aid prevention. A 2019 survey of 4,055 NEAR presentation attendees showed the majority reported they will incorporate their new knowledge about ACEs and resilience into their actions at work (89%) and at home (82%). As one NEAR Communities participant put it, “We need to remember that as community members, we have the ability to hold space for one another in our healing work and that it’s not just the role and responsibility of the mental health professional or the field…We all play a part in healing our communities."