Family Resource Center's New, Bigger Home Opens Monday

Mission Hospital's family resource center will reopen Monday in a new home three times the size of its former San Juan Capistrano location.

Of the four buildings in town that have housed the Community Health Enrichment Collaborative Family Resource Center—where the public may access resources for moms-to-be, the medically uninsured and the like—the location on Calle Arroyo will be the first where there's room to expand services.

"It's all about funding," said Russell Brammer, director of the Raise Foundation, which works in cooperation with CHEC as Orange County's Child Abuse Prevention Council. "Space is expensive. At a time when the need is the greatest, the funding to meet those needs is limited."

Being funded by Mission Hospital—which in the last fiscal year committed $32.7 million to community benefit programs such as its two family resource centers in Orange County (the other is in Lake Forest)—has its advantages, he said. The Raise Foundation works with six other family resource centers that receive most of their funding from local government agencies and are suffering from space constraints.

Hospital representatives recall CHEC staffers mentoring clients in places like Starbucks and the library. "It's always a challenge to find a private space to talk about issues that you'd want to talk about in private," said spokeswoman PhiPhi Tran.

The new home on Calle Arroyo has two classroom spaces and several offices with garden views. These are perks that will give clients a sense of dignity, said Christy Cornwall, director of Community Benefit at Mission Hospital.

The new services to be offered will be largely dependent upon the results of the latest Community Health Needs Assessment, but will likely include include life skills classes and childhood obesity information sessions. The need for a family resource center in San Juan Capistrano was actually gauged in one of the first assessment surveys conducted by the hospital.

The first center opened in 1998.

There remains a need today, Cornwall said, as evidenced by the number of people who walk through the doors. At the previous location on La Mantanza—which closed in August of 2010—staffers were helping about five people a day. 

"If you look at South Orange County, San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente are the two cities with the highest needs," she said, referring to low incomes and high-density living.