Introduction
Since 2013, Family Hui Hawaii (FHH) has been ensuring health and safety by supporting Hawaii’s families. Since its inception as Baby Hui over 40 years ago, FHH has created an environment where interactions between keikis, their families, and communities play a significant role in raising the new generation of youth. Through family-oriented empowering, FHH’s much-needed support and facilitation are delivered through personalized contact and consistently yield positive results. Our non-profit makes resources available through earned trust, dedication, and ongoing education and expertise, with the primary focus of providing a nurturing environment to ensure that the youth and their families will thrive.
Discussion
Family Hui Hawaii contributes to youth development via several services affecting the quality of parenting. Through statewide in-person and virtual services, Family Hui Hawaii assists families in doing their best parenting and becoming active in supporting other families in their community. In addition, FHH provides parenting and child development education and facilitates deep self-reflection, which has been proven to reduce Child Abuse and Neglect (CAN). Through our Hui peer-to-peer parent support groups, we develop volunteer leaders and strengthen families to grow, thrive, and learn from/with each other
FHH emphasizes the belief that loving families bring up happy and thriving youth and that all should have access to the resources and social benefits required to guarantee the youth’s health status, security, and well-being. By giving children a secure and supportive environment to develop, prosper, and learn from one another, FHH assists, stimulates, and equips households to confront the difficulties of parenting.
Best known for Neighborhood Hui support groups, we also partner with early learning programs, health, and wellness agencies such as Salvation Army Family Treatment Services, Malama Services on Maui, Zero to Three Family Court (ZTT), YMCA, and Neighborhood Place of Kona, to bring our Hui programs to families who need it the most. Programming is strengths-based and focused on family engagement, promoting child relationships and parents as children’s first and most important teachers. Special 10-week gatherings are focused on assisting families as they advance in parenthood from prenatal to pregnancy through to age 5. Our programs are based on evidence-based Protective Factors: resilience, child development, communication, and concrete social support.
Family Hui Hawaii respectfully requests Macy’s funding for our Resource Caregiver, Adoptive, Guardianship, and Re-Unified Birth Families’ Hui, aka Foster Families Parent CafĂ©s. FHH’s initial proposal to address specific support for current Licensed Resource Caregivers in Year 1 and Reunified Birth Families in Years 2 and 3 are partially funded through the Geist Foundation. Because this Support Hui involves constantly shifting the target audience and a plan to increase the number of caregivers who participate, FHH is seeking specific funding to recruit, retain and accommodate the needs of these vulnerable families. This would ensure improved community health that will positively impact youth development in the area.
FHH’s efforts can continue and be furthered by Macy’s funding assistance by aiding the mission to complete current organizational tasks and plan future development and expansion of Foster Families Parent CafĂ©s. FFP CafĂ©s play a crucial role in empowering the youth and community. They act as a framework in which clear communication and raising awareness assist in the progressive development of families. Consequently, they facilitate safe environments within homes that would lead to the healthy growth and development of the youth.
In the past eight months, these Hui have been highly successful in that an almost instant intimacy is established with in-depth conversations and bonding between families who share the same challenges in fostering parenting. However, resource Caregivers (foster families) may have several different aged children in their care due to reunification, adoption, or change of placement, so additional accommodations will be required. Our assignment is to provide the necessary tools and environments to facilitate this accommodation process.
FHH’s aim to establish a dedicated Trauma-Informed curriculum is based on Hui’s continuously updated Embracing ‘Ohana manual, given to each family. In addition, focus groups were conducted on a cross-section of experienced General License, Child Specific License, and Project First Care families, as well as newer Resource Caregivers (licensed within the last year), to assess this community’s needs.
It became evident from the first three Focus Groups conducted that the support is not simply needed. It is urgent. Participants are so anxious to begin the Hui Support Groups that Project Creator and Lead, Jamie McOuat, has provided individual peer support to each family since January 2022, FHH’s start date for this pilot program. Hui’s confidentiality agreement is paramount, as this part plays a critical role in foster families’ decisions regarding participation due to their previous experience with Child Welfare Services support groups.
An integral part of the Hui includes child development education. Recent shifts in societal norms due to the pandemic create the necessity to aid foster families from different angles. Family Hui Hawaii’s actions are directed to address these needs, which include, but are not limited to, curriculum development, learning activities, and engagement of qualified childminders, all while keeping sight of children’s social/emotional development through regular interaction with peers. Child development milestones will be addressed and enhanced by regularly monitoring through Ages and Stages (developmental) questionnaires, establishing credibility, and maintaining records of achievements and near-future needs.
FHH has grown into a full-time team of eight members, all experienced facilitators and active in the state’s early childhood initiatives. All CAN Prevention advocates, we specialize in Early Child Development and develop, teach, and integrate bespoke-designed curricula for specific, vulnerable populations, as well as enhancing family engagement with schools and other resource programs.
All project Leads have been Hui participants and volunteer facilitators. This experience creates a dynamic of empathy, meeting foster families where they are and removing the authoritative burden of judgment. Staff facilitates with great care for the mental health of our participants. Our talk story style nurtures a safe environment, and families share their issues, frankly, seeking direct answers to their challenges.
The Executive Director and State Family Program Manager have been with Family Hui Hawaii since its incorporation. Jamie McOuat began as a peer volunteer Hui Leader and became an employee in 2016. Her area of expertise is the foster care systems and the Child Protective Services in Hawaii. She has been a Licensed Resource Caregiver in Hawaii for 12 years; ran an emergency shelter for 0–3-year-olds, and sat on the Advisory Board for It Takes an Ę»Ohana (the Hawaii Foster Parent Association formally under Family Program’s Hawaii’s Judith Wilhoite) and advocates for foster care reform wherever necessary. In addition, she has worked directly with birth families by initiating supervised visits and formal transition plans for children in her care; in Zero to Three Court and through recovery programs for birth mothers. Her top priority is the emotional challenges associated with trauma-informed care and the social welfare system, as well as foster parents being provided with a safe space to explore their issues.
Conclusion
All Hui programs remain free to all families in Hawaii and are entirely grant-funded or fundraised through events. This Foster Parent Hui is unique in the nation, providing services to all Foster Children, regardless of the child’s age, while still focusing on the most vulnerable children, prenatal to 5 years of age. We humbly request that Macy’s consider funding our Strengthening Families Protective Factors framework to foster the health and well-being of all Hawaii’s foster children by preventing the child abuse and neglect these keikis have already suffered.