MARYLAND FAMILY NETWORK

Throughout Maryland there are families – such as those headed by an adolescent – who need family support to avoid long-term dependency on public funds, incidents of child abuse and neglect, or school failure. Maryland Family Network, a non-profit created by the State and two Maryland foundations in 1986, addresses the needs of these families by establishing and maintaining a network of full-service community-based Family Support Centers designed to build on parents' own initiative. Our main job is to assure the quality of local programs through adequate funding and rigorous oversight. We spend about 97% of all the money we raise directly on the community-based programs. Maryland Family Network and the network of Family Support Centers are built on the family support principles. They are:

• A commitment to families and their individual members becoming empowered so they can help themselves to realize their own goals;
• An acknowledgment of the universal need for family support services, leading to programs without eligibility or "needs-based" requirements;
• A recognition of the necessity to actively involve program participants and community service providers as equal partners in the design and implementation of services; and
• A commitment to understanding the individual parent and child within the context of the larger family, neighborhood, community, city, state, and nation, recognizing the need to affect all of these environments.