Family Center facing cuts

By Taryn Plumb
Turley Publications Reporter

SOUTHBRIDGE -At home with 3-year-old twins, the young mother was looking to get her bundles of energy engaged and out of the house – something local, something low-cost.
So she came across the Southbridge Family Resource Center, where she found various exploration and learning stations; stacks of books; a playground.
It was a place where Lauren McLoughlin's daughters could play and interact, and where she could socialize – maybe even relax a little bit.
“I feel very strongly about what it did for me and my family,” said McLoughlin, whose dedication eventually led to her current directorship of the Center, which is operated out of the Kennedy-Donovan Center on Route 169 in Southbridge.
But now, the 10-year-old program is endangered.
The proposed Senate budget sliced $1.3 million from the state's Coordinated Family and Community Engagement grant, which funds the program.
If implemented, that would reduce the Center's support by almost 30 percent, and would most likely result in its abrupt closure on June 30, McLoughlin said.
There is reason for hope, though: The House's proposed version of the budget restored the $1.3 million. The numbers are now being hashed out in joint conference committee.
State Sen. Stephen Brewer, who sits on the conference committee, could not be reached for comment.
“Our focus right now is to restore that funding,” explained Danielle Morrow, of the Worcester Community Action Council, which facilitates the grant.
In hopes to do that, McLoughlin is calling on participating parents – hundreds of whom have stories just like hers – to contact their legislators and voice their support.
And she certainly won't be giving up anytime soon. “I will continue to advocate for the Center and do what I can to keep it alive and moving,” said McLoughlin, whose daughters are now 10. “I'll fight to the bitter end.”
Not that she hasn't faced this sort of thing before. Three years ago, funding was similarly cut and the Center was preparing to close – and at the very last moment, the money was restored.
“Which,” she said, “we're hoping will happen again.”
This year, though, things are more “ominous,” she acknowledged, because of the overall state budget situation. “The state has to cut somewhere, it's just a matter of where they're going to cut.”
As a last resort, the Center has been looking at other avenues for funding.
What's particularly concerning, McLoughlin said, is that the program is considered a supplemental program, a “nice to do.”
She doesn't see it that way, though. She thinks of it as a “need-to-do.”
“People are constantly telling me there's nothing like this in their area,” McLoughlin said. “I really do think we fill a gap.”
Indeed, the program, established in 2000, draws between 2,000 and 2,500 people from the surrounding area a year (almost all through referrals or word-of-mouth).
And, McLoughlin said, “Families are pretty invested."
Serving children birth to age 5, the program draws from a panoply of socioeconomic backgrounds, and is free to about 15 communities in Massachusetts, and roughly 10 towns and cities in Connecticut.
As McLoughlin described it, homeschoolers, custodial grandparents, day care providers – or just regular moms and dads – visit the center year-round to take advantage of its book nook; blocks, games and toys; gross motor room; outdoor playground; and art, math and science tables.
The goal: To promote play, which improves memory, builds imagination, develops speech and language, fosters social skills and emotional development, and promotes creative problem-solving.
“Play is the work of early childhood,” McLoughlin noted in a written description of the program. “Children learn through play.”
The Center is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and first and third Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon. Call 508-765-0292, ext. 244 or email family_center@kdc.org for more information.