One of the region’s leading organizations in fighting child abuse and trauma has a Mt. Lebanon connection that is sure to bolster its mission. And there will be ways for Lebo community members to get involved, too.
Family Resources, a nonprofit organization with presence around Allegheny County, has an ambitious and honorable mission that centers around preventing and treating child abuse and trauma across Western Pennsylvania. With origins locally dating back to the late 1800s, Family Resources has grown into one of the region’s largest prevention agencies, providing 10 trauma-informed programs that support children and families in various states: Before abuse occurs, during crisis and throughout healing. Their in-home and community-based services help families build safe, stable environments through counseling, parental education and practical support tailored to their needs. Family Resources works to keep families together whenever possible, ensuring children can thrive in safe and nurturing homes.
Josh Cramer, of Ashland Ave., was recently hired as the organization’s Director of Development. Prior to taking that role, he served on the Family Resources board for seven years, during which he saw the impact that Family Resources made on local families.
“The whole team of people working at Family Resources — the teachers, therapists, social workers the site supervisors — they’re all doing work that changes not only the lives of children who have suffered trauma or are at risk of suffering trauma,” Cramer said. “They change entire families’ lives by educating them, keeping kids safe until their parents get home from work, helping kids in the preschool age that just don’t have another school to go to. And seeing that has definitely worked, as it pushed me for the seven years I was on the board and continues to drive me today.”
In addition to treatment programs geared to the county at large such as the Family Resources Therapeutic Preschool, in which Family Resources supports social and emotional learning for children ages 3-5 years old who have experienced trauma, Cramer would like to bring some programming that is directly accessible to the Mt. Lebanon community.
“I’d love to put a group together like a breakfast club, or a coffee club, that gets together monthly or every six weeks or so,” Cramer said. “There would be a social component to it, but a portion of that hour that we get together, for maybe 10 to 15 minutes, would be me talking about the Family Resources programs. I’d like to have ‘graduates’ of our programs come and talk about how they were helped kept safe and how they were eased along by some of our family intervention services where our in-home workers go in and work with families to keep them together and ensure that the kids have a safe place to grow up.”
Cramer envisions having some of the Mt. Lebanon coffee shops possibly hosting this sort of program. The idea would be to have people pay $10 per month to be a member of this club, with all proceeds going directly to Family Resources and its programming. This would also help to spread awareness of the organization locally.
Family Resources, as it happens, has further Mt. Lebanon connections: Resident Jeremy Gracik is a former president of the board, while Adam Viccaro sits currently on its board. The Saloon of Mt. Lebanon hosted two large fundraisers on its rooftop deck in the early part of the 2020s and has donated to the organization.
“We already have some good momentum built up with Mt. Lebanon involvement here,” Cramer said. “But now I really want to get more. Now that this is my full-time job, and this isn’t something I’m trying to cobble together in my spare time, I want to activate this community and really engage them in our mission.”
To learn more about Family Resources or to get involved, please visit their website https://familyresources.org/ or email Josh Cramer at jcramer@familyresources.org.
