Knott’s Family Agency dba
Family Nurturing Center of Southern California
www.knottsfamilyagency.org

Mission Statement
To empower children, youth, and families to thrive and build healthy communities by providing comprehensive support for resilience and self-sufficiency.

About Us
The Knotts Family Agency was established in 1992 by Gwen and James Knotts as a safety net strategy for homeless teens and their babies. With a track record of almost 20 years, the organization evolved from a focus on foster care to now supporting safe, stable families and communities.

Over 2,500 vulnerable individuals and families are served each year and receive critical support for resilience, care coordination, parenting, youth mentoring and leadership development, financial literacy, environmental literacy, job training, and early intervention efforts to improve mental health. Programs are delivered through the Foster Family and Adoption Agency, a Family and Community Resource Center, and a Training and Research Institute, which houses a state-of-the art phone banking and community research capabilities.

Our Work
Knotts Family Agency is focused on improving the health of children, youth, and families through an array of social services and referrals to other community based organizations. Our goal is to create a comprehensive strategy that contributes to improved health and social welfare of participants. We serve low-income and vulnerable families each year, who receive critical care and support in areas such as family resilience, parenting, youth mentorship and leadership development, financial literacy, job training, and engagement to prevent the onset of mental health challenges.

• Foster Family and Adoption Agency: Supports a continuum of services for children in "out-of-home" care and maintains many programs including foster care and adoption, preservation, and reunification, adoption support and other post- adoption services.
• Family and Community Resource Center: Deploys community-based programs for education, youth leadership development, family strengthening, financial literacy, and culturally-competent strategies for prevention of onset of mental health issues.
• Training and Community Research Institute: Focus on training and technical assistance to other organizations, advocacy and civic engagement, program evaluation, and community-based research. The institute houses our state-of-the-art phone banking services.

Core activities and programs include:

• Prevention and early intervention. Serve as a resource center to improve health and well-being of community residents and address social determinants of health;
• Early childhood and parenting support. Provide training and support to parents as models for them to reproduce caring for child excellence;
• Youth development. Preparation of youth and young adults for responsible independent living both socially and economically;
• Foster care and adoption services: Ensuring the foster care arrangement is both socially responsible and economically viable so that more families would participate in transitional protection for our older children;
• Capacity building and community research. Provide technical assistance to develop the capacity of the community and organizations in areas such as grant writing, program design and evaluation, and community-based participatory research.