THURSDAY May 10, 2018
SUPPORTING LOCAL FAMILIES
TGI’s special Keiki Day edition helps benefit Parents And Children Together throughout Kauai and the state and Intensive Support Services Program. The Intensive Support Services he mission of Parents And Program assists families whose Children Together (PACT) is children have serious emotional, to provide a safe haven for social and behavioral challenges. children, allowing children to visit Services are designed to increase with their non-custodial parents or parental participation and include to transition from one parent to Multisystemic Therapy (MST), an the other. intervention model for children Promoting a healthy connection with willful misconduct disorder. between children and their parents MST helps the family to supervise is a necessity and can go a long and support their child’s adjustway in terms of a child’s ability to grow and develop interpersonal ment in the community. Functional and problem solving skills, said Family Therapy (FFT) is an eviMarie Vorsino, Vice President of Indence-based family treatment systervention Programs at PACT tem for youth experiencing one of Kauai. a wide range of externalizing beDENNIS FUJIMOTO / THE GARDEN ISLAND havior disorders along with family “Our family visitation center proproblems. vides an opportunity for court-orKeiki Day winners Cecilia Pierce, Lukia Lozar, Makana Haroldsen Proceeds from sales of today’s dered, non-custodial parents to and Melia Purcell, (missing Shania-Leigh Nishimori-Medeiros) special TGI Keiki Day edition benehave a safe and family-like home setting to visit with their children,” from one another. gram given its success over the fit PACT services to continue the Vorsino said. “They can play The organization started in 1968 years. work that they do on Kauai and games, they can have a meal, it’s as a single program in Kalihi, and “It’s definitely common (on throughout the state. completely monitored and comhas grown into an organization Kauai). We’re seeing more families The special-edition papers are also sold across the state and coppletely supervised. It’s a really nice that helps many families across the in our visitation center. You can state every year. It now offers serhave two parents who may not be ies will be made available to stuopportunity for parents and chilgetting along who can come in and dents in classrooms statewide as dren to build that relationship in a vices on Maui, Molokai, Lanai and safe and neutral environment.” the Big Island, as well as Oahu and do voluntary family visitation but gifts from sponsors and donors. we’ve seen an uptick in our family PACT is a family service agency Kauai. Other programs that PACT offers visitations,” she said. “These fami- to families in Hawaii include early that assists over 15,000 people a PACT offers facilities such as year. These programs are available family centers, domestic violence lies might have had issues between childhood education, mental to struggling families to allow par- shelters and transitional housing health support, youth developthe parents in terms of domestic to residents statewide. violence or restraining orders.” ents to work through their probment and community building. As Vorsino said that more and more There are two programs on a private nonprofit organization, lems together, rather than Kauai: a family visitation center PACT gets funding from federal and continue to argue and break away families are taking part in the proTHE GARDEN ISLAND
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state contracts — and donations from private gifts and grants. Keiki Day is PACT’s largest fundraising event of the year and funding can be used wherever it is needed most. This is critical to fill in the gaps and cover key programs that may not otherwise have funding. Keiki Day has raised approximately $70,000 for PACT in each of the last few years. One aspect of Keiki Day that shouldn’t be overlooked is getting the children involved too with essay and poster contests. This year, the contest winners were Cecilia Pierce, Lukia Lozar, Makana Haroldsen and Melia Purcell and Shania-Leigh Nishimori-Medeiros. At the end of the day, PACT’s mission isn’t to make money: it’s about keeping families together. “We have families that stay with us quite a long time and we see improvements in how the non-custodial parent interacts with their child,” Vorsino said. Youth and families needing service from the MST therapist are screened and referred to PACT through family guidance centers located around the state. Once contact is made, therapists work wherever necessary to accomplish their goal. For more information, go to www.pacthawaii.org.
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See A2 for information regarding Parents And Children Together programs
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