Meet Barbara Robinson

Barbara Robinson envisioned The Family Center after reflecting on her own experiences as a mom whose children were placed in foster care and as a grandparent who now fosters her grandchildren. As importantly, she has seen the negative impact that families who are not healed have on communities. Her vision for The Family Center is simple: When you restore and heal the family, you restore and heal the community.

Barbara understands the roadblocks that the existing foster care paradigm creates for reunification. While the existing model for reunification is well-intended, it can create unintended consequences for both the parents and children.

A New Paradigm for Foster Care

Barbara envisions a new paradigm for foster care visits that is, honestly so practical, it is difficult to believe that it has not been tried before. It is simply this: create a space where supervised visits can occur in a home-like environment. That’s it. It’s that simple. Current foster care models have visits in places like parks, libraries, even fast food playgrounds. But these environments do not help the parents practice the basics of parenting and it does not give the kids a vision of what life will be like when they return home—-because they are not experiencing a home. They are experiencing an outing with their parent.

An Invitation

The Family Center concept has become a reality through it’s contract with the Nebraska DHHS. As this new endeavor begins, we invite you to join us in our dream of healing our community one family at a time. Sign up to join our email list (don’t worry, we won’t bombard your inbox) or become a financial partner.

Thank you for your interest in The Family Center. We look forward to sharing this experience with you.