National Abandoned Infants Assistance Resource Center : Direct Service Programs : Directory : Lifelong Families

The Source - Spring 2008
This issue focuses on economic self-sufficiency for families affected by HIV and/or substance abuse. More...

Strengthening Connections Conference Archive
This conference highlighted the unique parenting challenges among families affected by substance abuse, HIV and/or incarceration, and the importance of the parent-child relationship in a child’s development. More...

2008 Teleconference Training Series
The Resource Center will host six trainings beginning in April 2008. The topics include the effects of methamphetamine, mental health services for women living with HIV and their children, and working with Latino families. More...

Assessing and Supporting Parenting in Families Affected by Substance Abuse or HIV (2007)
This guidebook provides practitioners and administrators with guidance in assessing, supporting, and strengthening parenting skills and parent-child relationships. [PDF]

National Abandoned Infants
Assistance Resource Center
University of California, Berkeley
1950 Addison Street, Suite 104 # 7402
Berkeley, CA 94720-7402
Phone: (510) 643-8390
Fax: (510) 643-7019
E-mail: aia@berkeley.edu

Lifelong Families
1800 N. Humboldt Boulevard
Chicago, IL 60647
Phone: (773) 395-9193
Fax: (773) 395-4486
Website: www.childrens-place.org

Project Director
Shaun Lane

Project Evaluator
Sally Mason, PhD

Sponsoring Organization
The Children’s Place Association

The Lifelong Families program, in collaboration with the AIDS Legal Clinic of Chicago, enhances Family Options, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services’ model of permanency planning, with additional comprehensive services to especially high-risk HIV/AIDS-infected families. High-risk families are defined as those in which the parent is ill (e.g., AIDS symptomatic), or when the caregiver is a teen, sibling, or grandparent (or other kinship relationship). The project will: (1) support families as they conceptualize their children’s permanency needs, assist in the identification of a permanency plan, and then finalize those plans; (2) facilitate the process of permanency planning by helping families address immediate crisis that demand their attention (e.g., affordable and stable housing, children’s educational failures, need for affordable and appropriate child care, attention to mental health issues which reduce their ability to address permanency issues and (3) build family capability and community linkages that will sustain the family over the long-term.