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The TALK Line Family Support Center provides families with a comprehensive range
of direct services to ease parental stress and foster healthy family dynamics.
These programs and services are designed to function as a social “safety
net” to assist families in sustaining and bettering their lives so they can
support, nurture and care for their children more effectively.
24-Hour Parental
Stress Line (415-441-KIDS)
San Francisco’s only 24-hour crisis
and counseling line helps parents under stress. As the entry point to services
for over 2,000 high-risk families, TALK Line deals with more than 14,000 calls
per year reflecting the damaging effects of emotional abuse, lack of parenting
skills, substance abuse, fragmented families, relationship violence, and poverty.
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Parent Drop-In Center
Provides a supportive,
homelike setting where parents can come to receive crisis counseling, find resources
and referrals, meet and share feelings and concerns with other parents, attend
a support or parenting skills group, use the free phone and spend some time apart
from their children. Because of our proximity to emergency shelter and transitional
housing programs, approximately one quarter of the parents using the Parent Drop-In
Center are homeless. The Parent Drop-In Center serves approximately 800 parents
per year, the majority of whom are involved with other programs at the Center.
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Children’s Playroom
One unique aspect of the Center is that while parents are attending counseling,
therapy or groups, their children are cared for in a warm and supportive therapeutic
environment designed to assess and address their needs. In addition, the Playroom
staff assists parents with concerns about their child’s development and behavior.
The Children’s Playroom is open Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to
2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., and serves approximately 600 children per
year. [back to
top]
Parent/Child Counseling
This program includes individual and family therapy, support groups and substance
abuse therapy. The counseling program provides families the opportunity to work
with a therapist in an open-ended time frame to address emotional and behavioral
difficulties that may interfere with effective parenting and contribute to ongoing
child abuse and family violence. Parents can also attend groups for support and
education about parenting, child development, substance abuse recovery and other
topics related to healthy family functioning.
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Substance
Abuse Services
Provides supportive substance abuse services for low-income
parents whose substance use is seriously interfering with economic self-sufficiency
and the well-being of both themselves and their dependants. Services include crisis
intervention, short-term substance abuse counseling, and group support for parents
and children. [back
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Respite Care Program
A licensed off-site child care center where parents can leave their children to
receive therapeutic care while they are looking for work or housing, or simply
for time away from their children during periods of stress, or other personal
turmoil. [back
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Economic Self-Sufficiency Program
Assists parents in job readiness and job search. Services include
pre-employment counseling and skills training, job preparedness and job placement
assistance, and a job retention program serving high-risk families to provide
the services needed to stabilize or better their employment, including intensive
substance abuse services for parents for whom substance abuse is seriously interfering
with economic self-sufficiency. [back
to top] | 
