FAMILY AND COMMUNITY RESOURCES INC

Family and Community Resources, Inc. (FCR) provides comprehensive services to individuals and families impacted by trauma at home, school, or in the community, with a specialization in supporting the needs of children, adolescents and adults affected by domestic violence. FCR's programs and services include: one-on-one case management and advocacy services for survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, and stalking; support group services, including Domestic Violence 101 and Parenting in the Aftermath of Domestic Violence; mental health services, including individual and group counseling; mental care coordination for children and families served by the Plymouth County Children's Advocacy Center; a Children Exposed to Domestic Violence program; two forms of Supervised Visitation Services; Rapid Rehousing Services; Healthy Relationships programming for teens; a Human Trafficking Awareness and Prevention Program; a Department of Public Health certified Intimate Partner Abuse Education Program; a community education and training on issues related to trauma and domestic violence; and a 24-hour domestic violence and mental health crisis line. All of our programming is staffed by a team of multilingual and dedicated advocates.

FCR began operations as a licensed mental health facility in Brockton, MA in 1977. Prior to that, it was incorporated in 1968 as the Youth Resource Bureau, whose primary purpose was to engage youth in positive activities (like Outward Bound) that would promote violence prevention. In 1991 FCR established the Domestic Violence Action Program. Our work is rooted in a trauma-informed systems approach with a deep understanding of how trauma intersects with poverty, racial disparities, immigration status, and other issues. FCR creates empowering modalities of care that are informed by our work and research from the field and is a recognized leader in developing and promoting promising practices. Since those first days of providing domestic violence services, FCR has sought to collaborate with other providers to ensure comprehensive, wrap-around services. In 2023, FCR partnered with the Plymouth County Children’s Advocacy Center (PCCAC) to provide Mental Health Care Coordination for all children and families served by the PCCAC and received funding to provide three additional full-time licensed clinicians to the FCR Behavioral Health Program.

In 2004 FCR was the first agency to place domestic violence advocates in housing and juvenile courts. In 2006, FCR received the first 10-year grant from the State to provide community-based DV counseling services with the City of Brockton and 10 surrounding communities. FCR staff coordinate and facilitate the Greater Brockton Domestic and Sexual Violence Task Force coordinating staff training and services for victims across partner agencies in the region. In 2017, FCR was awarded funding by the Department of Justice to provide support services to victims of domestic violence who are serving in the military, in collaboration with the Veterans Administration in Brockton, the National Guard in Hingham, several local police departments and the South Shore Women's Center. Recognizing a need to hold batterers accountable for their actions and to work with them to prevent further violence, FCR began providing Intimate Partner Abuse Education programs (formerly called Batterer's Intervention Program) in 2003. In fact, FCR was one of the first seven Department of Public Health certified programs in the state.

Early on FCR recognized a need to allow children to have connections with both parents, custodial or non-custodial, in a safe and supportive environment. In 1991 FCR opened the first Supervised Visitation Center in Massachusetts, providing services to families with domestic violence histories. Since our first center in Brockton, we have opened part-time visitation centers in Braintree, Raynham, and Hyannis. Today, the FCR visitation program is the largest of its kind in the state. In 2022, FCR won the Hedi Levenback Outstanding Supervised Visit Provider of the Year Award from the Supervised Visitation Network, an international non-profit for safe visitations.

Plymouth County has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the state of Massachusetts. In 2023, Family and Community Resources, Inc. receives a grant from the OVW to form the Plymouth County Human Trafficking Task Force, along with the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office, to spread awareness about trafficking by participating in outreach events and offer services to survivors of sex and labor trafficking in Plymouth County.

In 2019, FCR received funding from HUD to assist in quickly rehousing homeless individuals and families while minimizing the trauma and dislocation caused by homelessness. The program has been very successful, with funding renewed and increasing year over year, and helping over 50 families restart their life in safe and secure new homes.

In 2020, FCR launched the Healthy Relationships Program. Working with high school students from the Brockton community to educate student peer leaders on what constitutes healthy and unhealthy dating practices, the program served to equip teenagers with the skills and resources to develop safe, healthy relationships of their own. In operation of this program, FCR works with coordinators from The Boys & Girls Club of Metro South and Cape Verdean Women United.

We provided services to over 3,400 clients in 2024, from over 100 cities and towns across Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with a majority coming from the Brockton, Taunton and Fall River areas. Our clients are ethnically, culturally, and economically diverse; 75% live in households with incomes below the poverty level. Client ages range from infant through elders; the majority are women and children. A large number of our clients are disabled and/or homeless. Several of our clients speak another language and we currently have staff capacity to offer individual and group services in Cape Verdean Creole, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Portuguese. We also have access to a 24-Hour Language Line if no one on the staff speaks a survivor's language.