PRESS RELEASE

While parents love their children with their hearts and souls, sometimes difficulties such as job loss, strained marriages and relationships, and drug and alcohol problems can intervene, leaving overwhelmed parents struggling to take care of their family. Enter Olive Crest in Nevada with Safe Families for Children, a collaborative program between churches, volunteers and child care professionals that helps provide a respite for struggling families when straits are direst.

Safe Families for Children host families provide a safe, temporary home for children while their parents seek help and treatment. The volunteers submit to a full background check, FBI fingerprint process and attend parenting classes. Children can live in the care of Safe Families host families for two weeks and up to six months.

Safe Families for Children offers help in four key areas:

— Early intervention: Families get time to address risk factors that leave their children vulnerable to possible neglect and abuse.

— Child welfare deflection: For every child that doesn’t enter foster care, the program saves taxpayers about $30,000 per year, while keeping families together.

— Child abuse prevention: Overwhelmed, resource-limited parents get a safe, temporary place to get their children cared for without fear or threat of losing custody.

— Family support and stabilization: Program providers become the extended family that struggling parents, who may lack informal social supports or available kin, never had and sorely need.

“Safe Families for Children provides an alternative to child welfare custody, giving families time to address risk factors that, if left unattended, could lead to child abuse or neglect,” said Martin Malmberg, Safe Families coordinator for Olive Crest in Nevada. “With over 3,000 children in the Clark County child welfare system, the need to recruit more Safe Families host families is critical.”

To provide more information on Safe Families for Children, Olive Crest in Nevada is hosting the Safe Families for Children Forum, April 2, 6 to 8 p.m., the Crossing Church, 7950 W. Windmill Lane. Olive Crest officials will outline Safe Families for Children’s services and other agencies and initiatives working to help Southern Nevada’s most vulnerable children. The forum will feature speeches and question-and-answer sessions with Pastor Michael Hatch of the Unity Prayer Movement and the National Director of Safe Families Danny Sells. Childcare will be available upon request; international finger food from Brazil, Mexico, India and Japan will be served.

Olive Crest Nevada Executive Director Myesha Wilson said her group’s Southern Nevada programs are making a difference.

“This forum is an opportunity for us to bring awareness to our cause and engage our community,” she said. “Our programs and resources provided to families in crisis have resulted in over 7,000 safe nights for our community’s most vulnerable children.”

For more information, visit olivecrest.org/nv.

About Olive Crest
Since 1973, Olive Crest has transformed the lives of over 100,000 abused, neglected, and at-risk children and their families. We work tirelessly to meet the individual needs of kids in crisis by providing safe homes, counseling, and education for both youth and parents. Our many innovative programs reflect our conviction that strengthening the family is one of the most powerful ways to help heal children. With unwavering compassion, the Olive Crest family maintains a lifelong commitment to the youth and families we serve, even after they have graduated from our programs. Olive Crest in Nevada serves nearly 3,500 children and families each year. For more information on Olive Crest in Nevada call 702-685-3459 or visit www.olivecrest.org/nv.