SUPPORT FOR FAMILIES OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES
So all children can flourish
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
One in five children and youth has a disability or special health care need that puts them at higher for abuse neglect, dropping out of school, involvement with the juvenile justice system, unemployment and homelessness. Research shows that children with special needs can reach their potential when they have appropriate and timely services and supports.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Family Resource Center
Support for Families offers a phone line, a drop-in resource center, resource library, toy loan, quarterly newsletter, support groups, parent mentors, workshops and trainings, mental health short-term counseling and referral, Assistive Technology resource information, and family social events. All services are free of charge. Assistance in English, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin is available. We also offer information and educational services to professionals and actively collaborate with other organizations to help develop a more coordinated, family-friendly network of services for children and families. In a typical year more than 500 new families will receive intake consultations; thousands more receive help through support groups, workshops, our annual resource conference, the newsletter and website. We are based in San Francisco but also are part of collaborations that serve families throughout California.
San Francisco Inclusion Networks
This program is a professional development center working to advance the capacity of early care and education staff in San Francisco to create rich environments where children with and without disabilities learn and grow together.
Special Needs Inclusion Project
SNIP provides training, coaching, and support to help after-school programs create positive inclusive experiences for children.
Help Me Grow
Help Me Grow (formerly known as the High Risk Infant Interagency Council or HRIIC) brings together agencies for problem-solving and systems improvement for children birth to 5 with special needs.
Where we work
Accreditations
Bay Area Parent Best Special Needs Organization 2019
Affiliations & memberships
US Dept of Education Community Parent Resource Center 2019
External reviews

Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of clients served
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Family Resource Center
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
A total of 2600 unduplicated parents or guardians used one or more of Support for Families' services.
Number of family members receiving individualized consultations
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Family Resource Center
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
1,246 family members received individualized consultations with a Family Resource Specialist or Social Worker.
Number of training events conducted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Family Resource Center
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Education and training events for parents, children, professionals and others
Number of participants attending course/session/workshop
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Family Resource Center
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Total attendance by parents, professionals, children at educational events including workshops, parent/child activities, clinics, and panel discussions.
% of clients who report they increased their knowledge of their child's needs and/or available resources.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Family Resource Center
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
93.7% of parents attending workshops agreed or strongly agreed that the training provided increased their knowledge of their child's needs and/or resources available.
% of program participants who increased their ability to advocate for their children.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Family Resource Center
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
% of participants responding to a survey who stated that the workshop or training they attended helped increase their ability to advocate for their child with special needs.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Our vision: Support for Families strives to create a world in which:
• Every family has an inspired vision of their child's future
• Families have opportunities to network with each other
• Families, professionals and the community at large value and celebrate diversity
• Families, professionals and the community at large are knowledgeable about the resources that exist
• The community at large values inclusion of all children, youth and their families
• Institutional systems will ensure family centered care in which services are coordinated, community based and families' partner in decision making at all levels
• Providers will practice family centered care and partner with families at all levels of decision making
Our mission: The purpose of Support for Families is to ensure that families of children with any kind of disability or special health care need have the knowledge and support to make informed choices that enhance their children's development and well being. Through fostering partnership among families, professionals and the community our children can flourish.
Our Program goals:
• Ensure that families have a safe place to express their feelings, lessen their sense of isolation, share strategies and learn about services/resources
• Ensure that families, professionals and the community have knowledge they need about specific disabilities, navigating systems, current research, best practices for care, laws and regulations for family centered care and inclusion.
• Ensure that families, professionals and the community have access to that same up to date information, resources, and referrals
• Encourage and support convening and collaboration groups for streamlining services (a seamless system of services), engaging the community, and addressing systems change
• Encourage and support families and youth to take on greater leadership roles in the community (local and state level)
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
1) Continue to enhance our capacity to provide both high touch and high tech information, education and support to meet families where they are at and create a network of support to meet their individual and urgent needs.
As a way of serving families who are hard to reach, we want to provide the face to face, peer to peer, and ongoing support needed to build relationships and a network of support. In addition we want to better use the technologies available for dissemination of information and education.
2) Build our capacity to support families and youth to take on a greater leadership role and ensure that families' partner at all levels and their voices are being heard.
We firmly believe that children benefit when their families are informed, educated and partner at all levels of their child's care. We believe that youth are better able to care for themselves when they are able to partner with the professionals who serve them. We know systems benefit when family and youth participate and partner at all levels and the systems are responsive to their voices.
3) Maintain our commitment to collaboration and systems change by bringing differing perspectives together to agree on a goal and work towards it. This includes bringing together parents and professionals, working with different specific disability groups, ethnic groups, neighborhood groups, as well as other nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies. We believe that “the whole is more powerful and influential than the sum of its parts."
Families are often connected to many different services and agencies that don't communicate and work together. This leads to confusion for families and professionals. In addition, families are often caught between gaps in services and therefore their children's needs do not get met. In addition, there is sometimes duplication, which it is a waste of precious resources. Families' benefit and resources are maximized when families, providers, agencies and systems work together.
4) Continue to build our capacity to provide quality services, to stay in the forefront, address sustainability and risk management and continue to be innovative by using the "Circle": plan using our vision, strategic plan and setting annual objectives; implement our programs using agreed upon procedures; evaluate data both qualitative and quantitative to measure our impact; report back and assess taking time to reflect – what can we do different, how can we improve before we begin the circle again.
We place high value in providing quality services, we are proud of the work we are doing and recognize that we can always do better.
5) Continue to build a diverse resource base, including diverse funding and the use of volunteers increasing our community based resource support.
We need to ensure that we are using volunteers to the best of our ability, and that we have multiple funding streams to sustain our programs and services.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Support for Families has more than 30 years of experience providing information, education and support to families of children with any kind of special need. As SFCD has grown over the years, we have kept our emphasis on family-to-family support. Most of our agency leadership, staff, and volunteers are, themselves, family members of children with special needs. Our Executive Director, for example, began her involvement with Support for Families as a client when her daughter was born with significant disabilities; she became Executive Director in 1991. Our Family Resource Specialist staff members, our volunteer Parent Mentors, and more than half of our Board of Directors are also parents or family members of children with special needs.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Support for Families reviews its Strategic Plan annually to monitor progress towards goals and refine annual objectives. Examples of progress on our current goals and objectives include:
- Increased numbers of families and professionals accessing services. For example, over the last 5 years, the number of families receiving services from our Phone Line has increased approximately 44%; Attendance at workshops and trainings increased 42%. Evaluations of the quality and Impact of services from families and professionals consistently ranges from 85% - 95%.
-Increased involvement of youth and families in leadership positions. For example, the number of family members completing training as Parent Mentors now reaches more than 100.
-New collaboration and system change activities. Two examples: the SF Inclusion Networks, which is working to prepare more early childhood professionals to work with children who have special needs; and our new access and inclusion partnerships with museums, arts, and cultural institutions around the city.
-Data measurement: We have developed a new Salesforce data management platform that will provide more accurate ways to track and monitor client outcomes.
-Agency Resources: We now have a dedicated Volunteer Manager, and work with an average of nearly 300 volunteers annually. Our revenues from individual and corporate donors continued to increase.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?
Paper surveys, Focus groups or interviews (by phone or in person), Case management notes, Community meetings/Town halls, Constituent (client or resident, etc.) advisory committees,
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve,
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With whom is the organization sharing feedback?
The people we serve, Our staff, Our board, Our funders, Our community partners,
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection,
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
SUPPORT FOR FAMILIES OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES
Board of directorsas of 05/05/2020
Diego Valderrama
Parent
Term: 2017 - 2019
Eileen Boussina
parent
Diego Valderrama
parent
Jacob Block
Laurel Kloomok
Caroline Brogna
parent
Nicholas Fram
parent
Ada Li
Kathleen Shepherd
parent
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data