Families provide communities with the power, potency, and promise for a stronger future.
And we’re providing families opportunities to grow stronger through mentoring and coaching, so they can strengthen themselves—and transform their communities.
Why Strengthen Families?
Today’s families face challenges at every level: higher costs, emptier dinner tables, greater joblessness, smaller social networks, wider educational gaps, deeper isolation. And that’s all by Monday evening.
As families grow weary and weakened, their communities follow. The Miami Valley has seen this happen in each of its communities. Parents and caretakers—many of them single parents and relatives—carry the burden of multiple commitments to help youth in their homes make it day to day. They’re worn thin. And their divided attention and limited time lead to youth feeling overlooked or left alone for long periods of time.
That’s why MVLF’s first initiative to serve the Miami Valley was to mentor youth. And as mentors began to meet with mentees, it became more clear how great the need was for caring for youth’s parents as well.
Communities won’t flourish until its families are strengthened. That’s why we believe in strengthening families.
How Do We Strengthen Families?
Nothing replaces the family, which means family members should be equipped and empowered to feel confident and competent to fulfill their roles in their families. Programs and initiatives can provide helpful services, but they should never become the replacement for a father or mother in the home.
That’s why MVLF offers mentoring and coaching opportunities to churches, nonprofits, and agencies providing care and assistance to struggling, hurting families. We want to come alongside them to build their capacity as they come alongside families. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel in communities where initiatives are already active. We want to elevate and bolster churches’ and nonprofits’ present initiatives in caring for families.