FAMILY, Inc., born from a leadership project designed by U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah, is an effort restore families so that children may be reared in safe, nurturing environments. It also has a spiritual base in that it was developed during a bout with breast cancer and is considered as God’s plan for the founder. Research demonstrates that the breakdown of the family unit is strongly linked to many societal ills, and as a result our children have ended up in the child welfare system. With greater than 500,000 displaced children nationwide, this problem is more than deserving of our attention.
The organization’s holistic approach is family-centered and also seeks ways to rebuild and restore families that have resulted in total erosion. This rebuilding can be done via fostering, adopting or mentoring children with the ultimate goal of finding “forever families” to meet their many needs. With adequate use of available resources, families will remain healthy, and communities will thrive; “family” is the basic unit of any community.
FAMILY has established a list of resources and has assisted families with housing needs, referrals to mental health agencies, educational needs, domestic violence, etc. Through the efforts of the organization, several families have received the necessary training to become foster parents and have opened their hearts and their homes to children in need. A continual recruitment effort is warranted in order that additional families will offer their support in this same manner.
The organization suggests the initiation of FAMILY Ministries in churches, and other establishments of faith, whereby continual visibility will attract attention to this dire need. FAMILY, Inc. will work closely in assisting with the set-up of such ministries and will function as its resource pool. In example, a family in need would go to their area church and request assistance. FAMILY Ministry would refer the family to our services and we would guide them to the resources available, and provide appropriate follow-up. This would 1) make resources easier to access since there are numerous churches in the city of Philadelphia, 2) decrease the likelihood of family breakdown is support is offered, and 3) attract individuals to various entities of faith where they might also fine comfort and healing. Our goal is to assure the health and intactness of the family unit.
The "Faith in Families" effort is an approach designed to involve churches in the city of Philadelphia. FAMILY, Inc. desires to extend the approach by promoting the establishment of permanent help for children and families. Partnering with this cause seems appropriate, and together we can make a difference!
Wanda J. Lassiter has concerned herself with the well-being of others for most of her life. As a teenager she volunteered for several years in local church day care centers, working closely with pre-school children and their parents. Since that time she has worked with people from all walks of life, from infants to senior citizens. Wanda J. Lassiter has worked with the mentally ill and the mentally retarded, and was subsequently honored as ‘Staff of the Year’ by Special People in Northeast (SPIN) Inc., in the mid 1980’s for assisting this population with transition into the community.
Wanda continued her work at Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry where she completed the state of Pennsylvania’s ‘Grow Your Own Nurses’ program in 1992. This led her to a career as an emergency/trauma nurse at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where she begun organizing a team of doctors, nurses, social workers, and other hospital personnel into the community to address the influx of violence in schools, and the community. In 1995; she declared violence as a public health issue and targeted several schools in Philadelphia where the team involved students in real-time skits that addressed violence and some possible solutions. This effort led to Wanda’s receipt of the ‘Volunteer Outreach Award’ from the University of Pennsylvania Health System in 1997. She continued this work until transferring to The School District of Philadelphia, as a school nurse, where she is directly involved in the lives of youth. In this position, she is instrumental in assisting vulnerable children, and their families, in gaining access to available resources designed to improve academics and the quality of life overall. During this tenure Wanda J. Lassiter was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and this rendered her unable to work for approximately one year. She didn’t let this diagnosis slow her down in trying to make a difference in the lives of others and she concurrently was selected into a leadership training program sponsored by U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah and the American Cities Foundation designed to create leaders in every neighborhood in Philadelphia. Each participant was assigned to the development of an improvement project and Wanda’s project is now a 501© (3) non-profit organization called FAMILY (Fostering, Adopting, and Mentoring to Improve the Lives of Youth). The organization is concerned with ‘keeping families intact’ by referring families to potential supportive services or by recruiting suitable foster and adoptive families, and mentors, to augment care as needed.
Now a 5-year cancer survivor, Wanda J. Lassiter has since been awarded ‘Hometown Hero’ by The Philadelphia 76ers in February 2005 and in March of 2008 she was chosen as one of the ‘100 Most Influential African-American’ women in Philadelphia by the NAACP. Wanda has also worked closely with the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania’s Campaign for Mentors, serving to recruit almost 90 African-American males willing to be trained in this capacity. She is also an expert on mentor recruitment strategies and has run several focus groups in this area. Since incarceration of one or more parents has severely affected many family units, in her assigned high school, Wanda now aspires to aid both male and female inmates in returning to society and reestablishing that basic and most vital unit-the family.
Chad Dion Lassiter is nationally recognized in the fields of American race relations and violence prevention among African American males. He has worked with resilient and vulnerable families, youth, and communities as they experience normal developmental transitions in challenging environments. Chad Dion Lassiter’s research interest attempts to contribute to a more informed analysis of the diverse ways that adolescents and families, especially people of color cope with socioeconomic challenges and institutional racism. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Social Work where he was the “A. Phillip Randolph Award” winner (2001). Mr. Lassiter was chosen by Ebony magazine as one of the “Young Leaders of the Future Under 30” in February, 2003. In May of 2004, Mr. Lassiter was named “Who’s Who Among African Americans 17th edition” along with such notables as Colin Powell and Michael Jordan. He is a former research fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Collective Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, where he worked on two nationally successful research projects (P.L.A.A.Y.- Preventing Long-term Anger and Aggression in Youth) and (H.I.P.P.- Health Information Providers and Promoters).
He was named 2005 Philadelphia’s Most Influential African Americans “10 People Under 40 to Watch In 2005” by the Philadelphia Tribune. In September of 2007, to celebrate the 75th year anniversary of the Philadelphia Eagles, he was chosen by the Philadelphia Eagles and Dunkin Donuts as one of “The 75 Greatest Living Philadelphians”. He has worked on race, peace and poverty related issues both in Africa and Israel. Presently, he is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice where he is the 2008 recipient of the “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Involvement Award” for faculty and a researcher at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
As an infant, Emily Simon was adopted from Colombia, South America into a family who she can’t imagine life without. Emily Simon grew up in Chevy Chase, MD and was fortunate enough to have access to many wonderful opportunities, such as schools, camps, and sports teams. Emily began her college career at the University of Vermont, majoring in Early Childhood Education.
Emily envisioned herself teaching young children in the school systems. However, after the death of her father, her perspective of the child changed. She no longer saw the child as a single unit, rather a part of the larger unit, the family. Therefore, she changed schools as well as her major and eventually graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in Family Studies. The following two years, Emily Simon worked in DC as a Mental Health Intake Specialist at the Jewish Social Service Agency.
It was here that she learned a great deal about a wide variety of populations and what their needs are, in addition to managing fellow staff members. Emily slowly learned that her undergraduate degree would not allow her to do everything that she liked, on a professional basis. Currently, she is entering into her second year at the University of Pennsylvania, obtaining her Master’s degree in Social Work. During her first year at Penn, Emily had the privilege of interning at the Philadelphia Society for Services to Children where she visited families at their homes on a weekly basis that were in need of services. Emily states “that now, she finds herself lucky enough to be a part of this amazing organization, FAMILY Inc.”, performing administrative and program development work.