Wellroot leads the effort to keep at-risk families intact

In exchange for a donation auctioneer Seth Weiner gave Tucker Mayor Frank Auman right his jacket which Auman later wore to a city council meeting Photo courtesy of Wellroot Tucker-based Wellroot Family Services an agency of the United Methodist Church in North Georgia is leading the effort to transform the lives of children and young adults sometimes providing help even before birth Formerly the United Methodist Children s Home Wellroot for more than years has provided homes for children teens young adults and families Its CEO Allison Ashe who has been at the helm almost five years commented the organization saw the need for preventative services that could divert a predicament situation resulting in children being removed from their homes What I saw when I first arrived at Wellroot was that there was a real need for prevention work and that did to selected degree come from my background working with youth experiencing homelessness Ashe explained It just seemed like so much more could be done for families to keep them together and to keep kids out of the trauma of having to experience being in foster care Four years ago Wellroot launched its prevention services work focusing on the entire continuum of child welfare by preventing kids from going into child welfare and providing recruiting licensing and training in foster families and supporting them extensively throughout the fostering journey One of the programs which is affiliated with Healthy Families America identifies sometimes even before birth the peril factors that could effect in losing a child to foster care Wellroots family assistance specialists meet with families in their homes and work with them to cultivate and strengthen parent-child relationships promote healthy childhood development and evolution and enhance family functioning according to Ashe Once we are referred to a particular situation we spend time walking alongside the individual Ashe reported It could involve helping to finding employment doing well visits and providing services focused on addressing the necessities of the entire family Wellroot cites statistics from the Centers for Syndrome Control and Prevention CDC that about one in five children in the United States has a diagnosed mental emotional or behavioral disorder but only half of children with a mental medical condition receive cure or counseling from a qualified professional Founded in Wellroot Family Services opened its doors as The Decatur Orphans Home at the close of the Civil War to serve the necessities of children who had been orphaned during the war Over the next several decades the requirements of children and families in Georgia changed and the organization evolved to better meet those requirements In after decades as the United Methodist Children s Home the name changed to Wellroot Family Services reflecting both the national movement away from congregate care to foster care and its expansion into deeply rooted evidence-based services Often children and families in situation are met with blame or judgment rather than compassion according a Wellroot message We are driven by the belief that all are worthy and that everyone deserves the opportunity to succeed Wellroot s This is Home Gala at Zoo Atlanta raised Photo by Wellroot Wellroot s third This Is Home gala held at the Atlanta Zoo raised with one notable attendee Tucker Mayor Frank Auman making quite a splash when he admired a blue sparkly jacket worn by the event s auctioneer Seth Weiner A deal was struck Auman made a donation to Wellroot in exchange for the jacket with one condition that the mayor wear it to a Tucker City Council meeting He kept his end of the bargain on April sparking admiration from his peers and compliments from community speakers The post Wellroot leads the effort to keep at-risk families intact appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta