The Child and Family Support Center changes title
The Child and Family Support Center, a Cache County organization focused on strengthening families and protecting children, will change its title to The Family Place, with a separate branch called The Starfish Children’s Center.
The 33-year-old organization will celebrate the center’s new title at the Lee’s Marketplace car show on June 20.
According to Lynn Nelson, an associate director, The Family Place will welcome all families seeking assistance in family relations and parenting, while the Starfish Children’s Center will target families dealing with abuse and other problems.
“The Family Place is somewhere we can get good, wholesome things for our family,” Nelson said. “We can learn how to be a better family, we can learn how to be better parents and we can learn how to be better kids. The Starfish Center becomes a place where we put families back together.”
Executive director Esterlee Molyneux said she hopes the new name will result in a growing number of community members using the center.
“We are hoping to have a greater outreach into the community and that we will welcome at least twice the amount of children and parents into our education programs in the future,” Molyneux said.
After more than a year of working on this name change, the first public announcement was made at the center’s annual banquet on March 27.
“We’ve softly started to do a few things,” Nelson said. “Some of the signs will start changing and things like that. We made the announcement at the banquet, but the car show is when we’ll make a big deal of the event.”
According to Nelson, a major reason for the change was the stigma that came with a title that included “support center,” implying the sole purpose of the center was to fix seemingly broken families.
Nelson also said an additional reason for the name change was the difficulty people were having remembering the long title.
“Even board members would struggle saying ‘The Child and Family Support Center’,” Nelson said. “If the board members are struggling saying that name, the general public has no idea who we are.”
Molyneux said she hopes the new name will help the center reach new families and provide them with useful information.
“We are anticipating a more positive outreach,” Molyneux said. “We want the family place to be a household name, a place for parents to call for information, ideas, support and opportunities.”