Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Every December we like to reflect on the successes of the past year and look ahead to the exciting endeavors we will embark on in the new year. Over the past year we have grown as an organization and built new connections with our staff, partners, and participants. Here are some highlights:  

  • Our Gifts of Community program supported over 500 people from 129 families, 100 more people than 2024.
  • We ramped up training on NEAR Science to the Early Childhood Education (ECE) community. Since launching the initiative last year, our staff has trained 27 ECE professionals to share NEAR Science information. Collectively, presenters and staff have reached more than 410 ECE providers across Minnesota with presentations. 
  • Our Fundraiser for Family Wellbeing raised more than $22,000, compared to just under $18,000 the previous year. More than 100 supporters attended the event. 
  • We hosted the Growing Resilient Communities Gathering in May, bringing together 295 people from across the state to hear stories from those working to address the root cause of childhood adversity in their communities. 
  • We sold our Saint Paul building, improving our organizational efficiency. We are working to secure satellite locations so that Supervised Parenting can move into more community settings. 
  • We developed new dashboards for managers and senior leaders to assess program health in real time and to provide better information to our board of directors. We have also strengthened and created new evaluation tools for programs. 
  • FamilyWise established new partnerships in New York, Delaware, and California, where we are providing Wraparound Training to expand the use of the model. 
  • We relaunched the Bright Beginnings Parent Mentor Program and have begun actively recruiting new mentors. 

Charting the Course for 2026 

As we celebrate these successes, we are also excited about all that 2026 holds for FamilyWise. A few things we are looking forward to include:  

  • Celebrating our 50th anniversary as an agency through stories representing our past, present, and future.  
  • Developing a training for family service providers on our Natural Supports Toolkit that helps families build informal support networks to sustain them through life’s ups and downs. 
  • Expanding our Universal Participant Experience Survey to hear from participants in more of our programs about how we can best support their families. 
  • Introducing Spanish Early Childhood Education NEAR Science presentations available to communities across the state using the newly translated Spanish ACE Interface materials built with community partners. 
  • Continuing to expand our Wrap partnerships across the country. 

Stay connected to our 2026 news and events by signing up for our eNewsletter. Want to get involved with FamilyWise in 2026? Volunteer with us! There is still time to donate this year and to set up recurring monthly donations for 2026. Donate here.