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Family Mentors

The Family Mentor Program provides a highly trained volunteer who has gone through thirty hours of training to work with our at-risk parents for a minimum of ninety days.  The Family Mentor visits the home of the parent each week and helps them to develop a variety of life skills surrounding sobriety, budgeting, organization, parenting, health, nutrition, education, career and job search, to name the most common. Family Mentors provide parents with organizational tools such as a day planner and file box.  Additionally, when parents reach certain milestones, we are able to provide them with a laptop computer.

Goals of the Family Mentor Program:

  1. Prevent children from entering or re-entering the child welfare system.
  2. Encourage parents to become more independent and self-sufficient.
  3. Help parents achieve their goals and identify healthy, viable community resources.
  4. Provide more emotional and social stability to the child and the child’s family.

“My husband and I were foster parents for over 75 infants and very young children. Over the years I met many struggling parents who truly loved and cared about their kids, and wanted to reunite and rebuild their family, but lacked basic life and family skills. They would cooperate with their social worker and complete all requirements to reunify with their children, and many times the parent would complete their parenting classes, but I could see that they still had no idea how to put that information to use. Each time I returned a child to one of these parents, my heart would go out and I wanted to go home with the parent to help them learn how to care for their child and maintain a home that is safe and clean.”

Laurie Tyrrell, a former employee

““One of my clients told me that the person she found the most helpful through the CPS process was her Family Mentor. The Mentor was the most responsive, had lots of answers and suggestions for her, and offered guidance and direction at every stage. She was quite appreciative of that resource. I'm happy to pass on the glowing words!”

Rebecca Bowman, Dependency Court Attorney

Laurie’s idea became a reality when in late 2010, Placer First 5 approved seed money to launch a Family Mentor Program. And in 2018, Mental Health Services Act funding helped Child Advocates expand the Family Mentor Program to include parents of older children.

For more information, contact Program Supervisor Jamie Nichols at jamie@casaplacer.org, or call our office: (530) 887-1006