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CPP/Circle of Support Holiday Party

January 20, 2011

On December 2, 2010, some of the active members of the Lower East Side chapter of the Circle of Support organized a holiday party for many foster families from the Lower East Side, as well as other community districts. L.E.S Community Partnership sponsors and helps organize the monthly Circle of Support meetings that happen the second Monday of the month at 6pm, which is a support group for foster parents. Foster parents bring up many of their concerns at these meetings, share ideas with other foster parents and learn about resources from guest speakers. Meetings take place at the University Settlement Neighborhood Center. In lieu of the regular monthly meeting, the members decided to organize a holiday party for them and their children-in-care to enjoy. About 20 families attended this Holiday Party, in which families were treated to dinner, a picture with Santa, a gift and a cookie decorating activity set up Dina Gandey, who rents out classroom space from Houston Street Center for her cake decorating club. Ms. Huang, the L.E.S Community Partnership liaison, first found out about Ms. Gandey’s cookie and cake decorating class through the Houston Street Community Center Newsletter. William Melendez, the Community Partnership's program assistant, dressed up as Santa, which many of the kids were very excited about even before they knew they were getting a gift. Some of our Community Reps and Visiting Hosts were asked to help out to serve food, answer any questions parents may have had, and clean up.

In addition to foster parents and their children-in-care, many of the parents of the children also attended the event. As observed by one of the staff members from Catholic Guardian Society and Home Bureau, our partnering foster care agency, “It was very nice to see the children, parents and foster parents all eating together.” The party served as a wonderful venue for parents to visit their children-in-care, as it was a very nice family setting. Most of our families who receive visiting coach and visiting host services from L.E.S Community Parntership also attended this event and enjoyed themselves very much.

Many of our partnering organizations were also invited as an opportunity to do community outreach with the families. A representative from Educational Alliance, one of our very active members, took advantage of this opportunity to let families know about some of the openings that they have for Early Head Start. Ms. Erica Regan from Educational Alliance thanked L.E.S Community Partnership for this opportunity and commented that this is how community outreach should be done. L.E.S Community Partnership was also pleased to see that these connections were made, since one of the Partnership’s interest is to have foster care agencies make more referrals to both Head Start and Early Head Start. Early Head Start, for example, is the ideal opportunity for parents to visit their children who are in foster care, since it provides parenting education, as well as an opportunity to bond with their children. Overall, the Holiday Party was a very nice event for many of our families.

We want to thank Delores Morales, our Circle of Support Anchor Parent, and Gloria Lisa Baksh, our Circle of Support Technical Assistance consultant in all of the hard work that they have put into orchestrating this event. We also want to thank the many foster parents who brought a dish, helped set up, and clean up at the end of the party.

CPI Word
Jessica Gonzalez, Flora Huang, Johanna Marte

CPI Word
William Melendez dressed up as Santa.

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