About Us
All Children Will Succeed in School and in Life.
We strive to achieve that goal by addressing the root causes of problems, building on cultural and other strengths, pooling resources, engaging an extraordinary diversity of community members, and committing to a long-term process of planning, implementation, and evaluation.
Using a family-centered approach, our local schools, health and human service agencies, businesses, the faith community, law enforcement, nonprofit organizations, and civic clubs work together—with families—to focus on academics, physical and mental health, nurturing parenting, economic success, and community service. We tap existing resources, streamline systems to be more efficient and effective, and initiate new projects.
We focus on networking and relationships, connecting our most vulnerable children and families to partners and partners to each other. While no one sentence can adequately articulate what our Collaborative does, this one says it all: “Helping People Help Others.”
Our History
Cusseta-Chattahoochee Family Connection was created under the authority of Act 677, adopted March 27, 1998 and amended May 1, 2002, by the General Assembly of the State of Georgia. Designated as the local decision-making body for prioritizing the needs of families and children, the Georgia Family Connection Collaborative brings community partners together to develop, implement, and evaluate plans that address the serious challenges facing our children and families.
Our Partners
Cusseta-Chattahoochee Family Connection, together with Communities In Schools, partner with organizations that support families to research the needs of children and families in our communities, and work together to address those needs.
- Department of Family & Children Services
- Public Health
- Athens Housing Authority
- Department of Juvenile Justice
- Chamber of Commerce
- Juvenile Court
- Police Department
- Sheriff
- Department of Leisure Services
- Department of Labor
- Catholic Social Services
- YMCA
- YWCO
- Boys & Girls Club
- Council on Aging
- Child Abuse Prevention Council
- Sexual Assault Center
- Court Appointed Special Advocates
- Department of Human & Economic Development
Our most important partners are the families whose children we are serving.
Some of the projects that have been initiated through this process:
- Prekindergarten Program
- Even Start family literacy program
- Early Head Start
- Homeless Education program
- Anti-truancy initiative
- Nutrition and health insurance outreach
- Summer Youth Program
- Community Partnership for Protecting Children
- various welfare-to-work strategies
- Community Education Summit
- Unified Government, and School District
Our Results
Working in partnership with families, we’ve tackled intractable problems like teen pregnancy, child abuse and neglect, school dropout, and physical and mental health disparities. Working together, our partners have achieved remarkable results:
- After increasing for years, teen pregnancy began moving downward when our partners developed and implemented a comprehensive, holistic plan starting in 1992, and is now 42% lower.
- We pulled together our partners to strategize about truancy, and within three years of implementing the strategies, the number of students absent more than ten days declined by 23%.
- With the leadership of Public Health in collaboration with other partners, childhood immunization has increased by 15%.
- The percentage of babies born healthy (as defined by Public Health) is up by 31%.
- Child poverty is down by 12%.
Our success is our partners’ success. We bring them together so that together we can develop and implement the strategies to improve outcomes for all children and families.
About Georgia Family Connection
Georgia Family Connection is the only statewide network of its kind in the country with partners in all 159 counties working toward measurably better outcomes for our children, families, and communities. This gives us a unique vantage point—not only to see the big picture—but also to operate effectively at a local level.
We disentangle the mess of barriers, service gaps, and inefficiencies obscuring progress for our most vulnerable families. We do that by connecting our partners to resources, helping coordinate and manage efforts, and empowering our communities to craft local solutions based on local decisions.
Georgia Family Connection Partnership (GaFCP) represents and promotes Georgia Family Connection’s work, provides expertise in planning and governance, administers the state-appropriated funds for the local Collaboratives, sets standards of excellence, and helps Collaboratives evaluate their progress.
The state’s designated KIDS COUNT grantee, GaFCP also provides state agencies and policymakers with current, reliable data they need to inform decisions about improving conditions for the communities they serve.
Our Work
At Georgia Family Connection, we work to ensure that all children are healthy, primed for school, and succeed when they get there; families are stable, self-sufficient, and productive; and communities are vibrant, robust, and thriving.
None of these result areas stand in isolation. They overlap. By collaborating across sectors to address them, we nurture children and families who thrive in vibrant communities—everywhere. Because we work toward measurably better outcomes for everyone.
