Families Helping Families 25th Anniversary Celebration

Save to Favorites

About Families Helping Families of Greater New Orleans

Location:

700 Hickory Ave., HARAHAN, LA 70123, US

Mission Statement

The Mission of Families Helping Families of GNO is to educate and connect children and adults with disabilities, and their families to resources, services and supports to attend school, work, and thrive in their community. Family Values: *Every family has value and choices *Every family can grow and build their capacity *Every family should feel comfortable when reaching out to FHF. Guiding Principles: *Individuals with disabilities will be actively engaged and thrive in an integrated community with full access to school, work, housing, transportation, and recreation. *Individuals with disabilities will be treated with respect and dignity, where we always presume competency. *Parents of children with disabilities will be empowered through education, information, referral, and peer support and become their child’s best advocate.

Description

Families Helping Families of GNO opened their doors on November 1, 1994, as a small family resource center, looking to provide support for families of children with developmental disabilities. Our founders were a group of moms that had to learn how to navigate complex service delivery systems on their own and wanted to make it easier for others that were in similar situations.

Over the years FHF of GNO grew into a larger organization that serves about 6,500 families annually. However, our original goal of families helping families hasn't changed. We still employ parents, other family members or individuals with disabilities to provide direct support to other families going through similar situations. Families want to talk to someone else that has been there and done that. They've often heard from professionals about the "doom and gloom" of raising a child with a disability. Our goal is to support them with this, but also teach them to dream big and believe in their child. Every person deserves to reach their full potential. We never want families to settle for less than that.

We train parents on their rights and give them permission to dream big, because we never want to sell any child short of reaching their maximum potential.