Homeward House Program Toolkit
Section 2: Building Your Program
This section is about preparation — everything that needs to be in place before your program opens its doors. It starts with the people and strengths already present in your community, then walks through the practical decisions: choosing a collaborative approach, building a budget and funding plan, hiring and training Parent Ally Mentors, filling key roles, and setting up the spaces and systems that make the work possible.
The style of these modules is more straightforward and practical than those in the first section, and that’s intentional. We’re sharing what we actually built — the forms, the role descriptions, the processes — for you to adopt as is or use as a starting point to refine for your own community.
Module 1: Engage People Who Care
The most important ingredient isn’t a budget or a building — it’s people. This module walks you through the foundation you need and offers tools to inspire and attract others to your collaborative, because the people drawn to this work often find it connects deeply with their own sense of purpose.
Module 2: Take Stock of Your Community’s Assets
Before you begin, it’s worth taking an honest look at your community: what partnerships, resources, and relationships are already in place, and where the gaps are. This module walks you through that mapping process so you can adapt the model thoughtfully and make it yours.
Module 3: Choose Your Approach to Collaboration
There’s no one right way to collaborate — options range from informal networks to full collective impact. This module walks the spectrum, shares what we learned about power, backbones, and buy-in, and helps you choose a starting point that fits your community and can evolve as your work does.
Module 4: Build a Budget and Funding Plan
You don’t need one big grant to get started — you need a plan. This module walks you through braiding funding from multiple streams, drafting a small pilot budget, and building sustainability in from the beginning rather than after the first grant runs out.
Module 5: Recruit and Train Parent Ally Mentors
Parent Ally Mentors are the heart of this model — parents who have lived what these families are living, and made it through. This module covers how to find them, hire them, and prepare them for the work.
Module 6: Fill Other Key Roles
A program is more than its services — it’s a facility to open, close, and maintain, referrals to process, schedules to cover, and partners to keep in the loop. This module covers the coordinator role that holds it all together, what it grows into, and what we learned about hiring well.
Module 7: Establish a Family Visitation & Resource Center
For families in the child welfare system, the space where they see their children is never neutral — it either reinforces shame or works against it. This module shares the five design principles behind the Homeward House Visitation & Resource Center and shows how any community can start, even with a single room.
Module 8: Integrate Infant Mental Health Services
A child can’t learn to regulate their feelings without a caring adult, which is why infant mental health services support the parent and child together. This module shares how a collaborative partner brought this expertise to Homeward House, and what we learned about making it welcoming instead of intimidating.
Module 9: Embed Family Voice
Parents shape a program most when the structure makes room for them before the doors open. This module covers what to design during your build — a parent voice group with a real place in your governance, who facilitates it, what it carries weight on, and what you pay for that time — so the space is ready when families fill it.
Module 10: Set Up Systems and Processes
Behind the warmth of a home-like space are the quiet systems that make it work: referral pathways, intake and assessment, and the forms that follow a family’s journey without getting in its way. This module walks through the full client participation cycle and shares every form we used — along with what we’d simplify.