Focus on families
Focus on families expands at WAGAP
School supplies and car seats among items available
Goldendale, WA (January 3, 2024) - When a family struggles to make ends meet, the small things taken for granted can make a huge difference in their quality of life. The Family Resource Center in Goldendale helps to stabilize families with children under age 18 in Klickitat County to prevent child abuse and future houselessness.
The new center’s coordinator, Briana Cuevas, is on a mission to ensure families in need are connected with simple items that make their day-to-day lives more manageable. “Materials that are available with assistance are baby supplies, school supplies, household items, food, and gas vouchers,” Cuevas said.
The Family Resource Center operates from The Harbor, a Washington Gorge Action Programs (WAGAP) office at 125 West Main Street in Goldendale. Cuevas shares space with the Youth Drop-In Center, which works with young adults struggling with houselessness, or at risk of becoming houseless. Together, the programs link clients with the many resources available through WAGAP, such as housing, food banks, youth prevention, and the Community Health Workers of the Pathways program.
Cuevas knows the people of the area. She is from Goldendale, and after returning from college with a Bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies from Eastern Washington University, she came home during the pandemic. In early 2023, she began working as an administrative assistant in the behavioral health field, which she says was impactful to her in transitioning to this new career. In September, she came to WAGAP to work directly with people in the area.
“It’s a very rewarding job,” Cuevas said. She travels regularly from the office to meet people on the ground by partnering with housing, energy assistance programs, and the mobile food bank as they do outreach throughout the large geographical area of Klickitat County. “As families are receiving these other services, I’m looking to see what we can do for the bigger picture,” Cuevas said.
During site visits, Cuevas brings some items with her, such as vouchers for clothing, food, gas, diapers, wipes, and bottles. She also takes notes of what the families need so that she can connect them with other essential supplies. She welcomes families in need to contact her so she can work with them directly to make sure they are in the WAGAP system and connected with Community Health Workers who will provide individual support to link them with outside resources for achieving a healthy physical and mental life.
Other services the Family Resource Center can assist with include youth and family mediation and adult and family life skills. Cuevas offers budgeting assistance and helps families learn to be more cost-efficient. She can also assist in linking adults with job materials and training opportunities through referrals to outside programs such as People for People and Worksource.
Families have also benefited from prevention activities in the Goldendale area, and Cuevas helps to spread the word about these fun bonding activities that bring parents and children together. The WAGAP Housing team has been co-hosting monthly events with the Coalition for Preventing Abuse in Klickitat County (CPAKC) since the summer of 2023, which have included events like bingo and karaoke nights, holiday parties, and coming up on Saturday, January 20, 2024, from 8:00-10:00 a.m. a free community breakfast that will be held at the Goldendale Grange Hall.
Cuevas emphasized how important teamwork is across WAGAP and how essential it is to the success of individuals and families in need. For someone in need who has yet to connect with any WAGAP programs, she shared that they can begin with an intake form at https://www.wagap.org/start. The form is available in both English and Spanish.
For any questions about the Family Resource Center, Cuevas can be contacted by email at briana@wagap.org or by phone at 509-281-2508. Office hours at The Harbor are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.
WAGAP’s Family Resource Center is funded through a grant from the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF). The effort targets families previously enrolled in the emergency Turning Point Rapid Rehousing program but is open to all low-income families in Klickitat County.