West Side Resource Center

One of the most terrible situations a parent can be placed in is to have to look into the eyes of their child and have to tell them that there is nothing to eat, no where to sleep, and no help to be seen.

There is hope! In Taft, tucked away in the Fort on 10th Street, there is a ray of light for any family that needs help getting back on their feet -- The West Side Community Resource Center.

This community driven resource center provides resources and support services for families and children. Families in need can find a wide variety of help ranging from being linked to some local service agencies, attending parent education classes, sending their children to school readiness programs, and in severe situations, can provide clothing, utility assistance, prescriptions and food. However, Sandra Koenig, the Director of the Resource Center clarifies that, “Our goal isn’t just to offer things. We want to help families identify how to move forward and become stable. We don’t want to just be a band-aid, we want to heal them.”

President Lyndon Johnson once said, “The family is the corner stone of our society.” The West Side Community Resource Center is completely dedicated to helping families to have the training, resources, and connections they need to become a healthy and active part of the Taft community.

Depending on the family’s needs, the center provides a variety of helpful services. These services include the Resource and Referral, Parent Education, Direct Services, School Readiness Programs, and Special Projects. Each service provides different types of family support. The staff at the Resource Center determines which programs will help individual families to stabilize and then work with the family through the process until the families are strong and healthy. The staff is made up of Sandra Koenig, the Director of the Resource Center, Kathy Johnson, the Family Advocate, and Pam Brown, the Salvation Army Representative and Office Manager.

Sandra Koenig provided a successful example of a family that came to the Resource Center for financial help. While helping the family to stabilize financially for the present, the staff encouraged the father to go to college which would provide him with new, high paying job opportunities. The father didn’t believe he had what it took to go to college, but eventually agreed to take a test, which he passed at college level. The father was thrilled with his successful results and enrolled in the college. The family can now look forward to a future of financial stability.

The School Readiness Program helps families with children about to enter into Kindergarten. The program provides a variety of classes for the children which help them to prepare physically and mentally for school. They have preschool classes called “Ready, Set, Go!” which smooth the transition from daycare to Kindergarten. The Resource Center also has a 4 week intensive summer program which focuses the children to learn their letters and numbers so when they begin school, they are ready for the Kindergarten curriculum. There are Development Assessments to determine if the child is ready mentally for Kindergarten and if not, what areas need to be focused on so they can be ready. The staff can provide contact information on where to have free immunization shots so the child can pass their physical to begin school. And last but not least, they provide Case Management Services which helps the child to be ready emotionally to interact with other children in school.

The Resource Center is aware that the family is also made up of adults, and they provide many classes for the parents. These classes include general parenting workshops, nutrition classes, court mandated classes, foster parent trainings, and even infant massage for new parents. These are supplemented with the Parent Resource Room which provides parenting books, videos, and a variety of materials. In the long run, teaching parents how to be better parents enriches the children’s lives.

The Resource Center is funded through several ways. One of which is through Proposition 10, also known as the tobacco tax, and First 5 Kern. The First 5 Kern funds programs to enroll pregnant women and children between the ages of 0 and 5 in health insurance. They also provide health insurance for children that do not qualify for existing insurance. It also provides dental screening and treatment programs for children ages 1 to 5. The First 5 Kern also provides many of the classes mentioned above for the parents and children which help the child to be emotionally, physically, and mentally prepared for school and interaction with other children. The program also helps provide quality child care for low income families with working parents or if the parents are going to school.

Another source of funding is the California Abuse Prevention and Intervention Grant, also known as CAPAT. CAPAT provides a partnership between the Resource Center and Child Protection Services (CPS) for high risk families. This program helps children between the ages of 6 to 18 years.

The funding that helps meet the majority of the immediate needs of families in the community is surprisingly, the Salvation Army red kettles that one sees outside of Kmart and Albertsons during the holidays. “All the money donated to those red kettles is given to the local community. We use that money to fund immediate assistance for families that the other grants and funding disqualify,” explains Sandra Koenig.

“All the financial assistance, like paying utilities and rent to help families catch up with their bill comes from the money raised with the red kettles,” says Pam Brown, “We also help pay for prescriptions or doctor bills for those that don’t have insurance, the parenting classes, food, clothes, and even housing. The money helps those that have no where else to go.”

The Resource Center also has many special projects they provide through the year, such as the Thanksgiving food baskets, Back to School clothing drives, the bicycle safety fair, car seat inspection event, Holiday Angel Project, and the annual Safe Trick-Or-Treat. “The Thanksgiving food baskets are our most successful event,” states Sandra, “Because it streamlines the community donations into one place. The community works together for a single cause. Last year we served 200 families at Thanksgiving.”

There is no doubt that the West Side Community Resource Center is doing everything it can to help make Taft into a more healthy community one family at a time. If there is anyone in the community that would like to help support the Resource Center, they can attend the bi-monthly community “Together We Can” collaborative meetings. Different organizations and local businesses meet to identify needs, find solutions, and obtain funding for a variety of projects in Taft. The next meeting will be on Wednesday, February 11th, at 4:00 pm at Chevron Valley Credit Union (Next to Rite Aid) in the Community Meeting Room.