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Feature Story Written for The Durham VOICE
Through interactive counseling services, training, and workshops, Exchange Family Center, a Durham 501(c)3 non-profit organization, not only aims to keep families connected and helps improve the lives of children and parents in Durham.
For more than 25 years, Exchange Family Center has provided resources through various programs and initiatives to guide children and their families through difficult periods in their lives and to ensure that their wellbeing is in shape and child-abuse is not present in their lives.
According to Rachel Galanter, Exchange Family Center’s Executive Director, the national nonprofit has the idea that was that every parent who wanted it could have in-home support to help them learn how to respond better to their children and to be able to give them the skills and strategies that they needed to be effective caregiver and to not be pushed past their limits.
“We want to make sure that the services we are offering are really going to work,” Galanter emphasized. “We also want to make sure that our services are as accessible as possible.”
Along with these services to work and be accessible, Galanter added that individuals within EFC programs must be trained properly in regards to the subject matter that will benefit the parents and child.
"We can help them address those specific concerns, help them figure out what causing those behaviors," Galanter said regarding to the outcomes of the trained EFC program professionals. " We can help parents come up with a plan to help them better understand their child."
Calvin Burton, Exchange Family Center’s Development & Communications Manager, said there are three main programs that the nonprofit offers to its clients: the Early Childhood Outreach Program, the Family Support Program, and the Parenting of Adolescents Program.
“We work with parents to help them better understand their child challenging behaviors,” Burton said in regards to the programs that EFC offers. “We give them the tools and strategies within these programs to help them address those behaviors.”
Galanter added that the most popular program that EFC offers is its In-home parent-child interaction therapy.
Within this program, trained EFC employees venture to the homes of its clients, to inform them other their various communication and strategic techniques that can be used to address children's behaviors and counsel those families through difficult feelings in a positive way.
“To be able to have a reset button that shows the positive relationship again and then helps parents know a strategy that’s going to get their child to listen, it's a powerful thing,” Galanter emphasized.
As a part of Exchange Family Center's mission, Galanter referenced how important it is for clients to have access to the information and resources that the nonprofit has to offer.
“We want to make sure that families without resources know that we are here for them,” Galanter said. “We would want them to feel free to call us and ask for our help.”
Along with the programs and events that EFC holds, according to Burton, EFC's Pinwheel Family Fun Day (April 2019) its 50th Annual Golf Tournament (September 2019) were prominent events to help carry on the work of the organization.
In addition to the Pinwheel Family Fun Day and Annual Golf Tournament, Galanter referenced EFC's upcoming Adopt-a-Family campaign in December to help EFC families in need during the Christmas season.
“I think that those kinds of events are things that we would want a lot of people to know about,” Galanter said, “because they are away for anybody to get involved in the work that we do and of helping to make children’s lives better.”
According to Galanter, last year, 13% of the families who acquire the services of the Exchange Family Center were self-referred and the other 87% were referred from outside organizations.
On the other hand, nonprofit organizations similar to EFC in Durham require its clients to pay, but EFC is different from the rest.
“We are unique because we don’t do insurance billing. We are free,” Galanter remarked. “We are able to provide services to people who otherwise wouldn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Although EFC’s services are free to its clients, the referral waitlist for families in need can be quite lengthy.
“There were people who have waited nine months to a year,” Galanter said in regards to EFC’s waitlist. “Fortunately, our waitlist is much shorter.”
To combat the lengthy referral waitlist and continue to provide its services to current and potential clients free of charge, Galanter and Burton addressed the various options and resources that Exchange Family Center utilizes to raise its funds.
According to Galanter, the nonprofit garners its funding from grants, donations, and local organizations.
Funding and resources from organizations such as the United Way of the Greater Triangle, the Governor’s Crime Commission, The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and others help EFC provide free services to clients in need.
In regards to fundraising for EFC, Burton empathized how his writing skills have helped the nonprofit with its grant writing process.
“I had an epiphany that I can either help one person at a time or as many people as I possibly can,” Burton said. “I think that fundraising and grant writing allows me to help a whole lot of people at one time with the talents that I have.”
With the amount of clientele that Exchange Family Center serves, the employees that work there are vital for the mission of the nonprofit being fulfilled. Galanter emphasized how the commitment of EFC employees helps them make a difference in the lives of others.
“One of the things that make Exchange Family Center good are the people who are committed to it,” Galanter said. “We come together and are achieving something together that none of us could achieve on our own.”
Burton concluded by emphasizing how Exchange Family Center continuously works to make children’s lives better and set them and their families up for success.
“We’re setting children up for a lifetime of success where they can be healthy, happy, and stable adults because they have the resources guiding them through life,” Burton concluded.
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