Since 1993 Family Connections has worked with residents to provide Family Support, community building, organizing, address neighborhood concerns, and develop concrete solutions.

In 1992 Maryann Fleming was serving on the Advisory Board of E.R. Taylor Elementary School’s Healthy Start program in the Portola. The Advisory Board recognized that “if families were not engaged in a more comprehensive approach to their children’s development, the desired results would not be seen.” Based on their observations, a 3-year Community Empowerment, Office of Child Abuse grant was applied for and received. It was the seed money that created Family Connections. Fleming was selected by the E.R. Taylor Advisory Board as the first Executive Director. She immediately organized Community Advisory Board and with its assistance, developed a thorough four-page (front-to-back) needs survey that was distributed to 600 Portola families to determine what the community needed and what services were lacking. Based on the overwhelming response and results from the survey, the community had made it clear that they needed family support. Fleming then took the opportunity to actualize the communities’ demands, using the Principles of Family Support as the underlying philosophy and framework to deliver the initial community requested services.

We strongly believe that the role of parents and caregivers is that of leaders, visionaries, advisors, and facilitators -- our philosophy is that "our programs are for the community, by the community, and of the community." Accordingly, our programs and services are participant-driven and guided by ongoing input and feedback from our monthly Parent Advisory Board, participant satisfaction surveys, and continuous participant dialog with program staff.