Because every family matters and every child deserves a happy healthy future.

How We Work

Just Imagine Being --

• Pregnant and homeless.
• Age 14 and pregnant, unsupported by your parents, and shunned by your friends.
• Pregnant and new to this country, without friends or language skills.
• Poor, so poor that you do not have enough money for diapers, a crib, clothing, food, or toys for your baby.

This is Brighter Beginnings.
For over two decades, through our centers in low-income East Bay neighborhoods, we have partnered with and provided support to an average of 2200 East Bay families each year.

Focused on the Family
We reach out to families who are stressed and support them in raising healthy babies. It's now well known that children who are deprived of love and bonding in the early years will often set up negative behavior patterns that are difficult to change later on. Our support allows moms to experience healthy births and to nurture their young children.

Unique Approach
Our approach is unique in its focus on intensive outreach to the whole family. Our Family Advocates can, for example, help Grandma find services for her poor health, or help Dad with job resources. We understand that a variety of things may make it hard for women or their families to come to us. So we go to the families – wherever they are, whenever is most convenient for them. We look for mothers who might need us in many places, including homeless shelters, on the streets, and at laundromats.

Making a Difference

We know that our work goes beyond promoting healthy births and healthy development.  We are privileged to offer help to families just when they are most open to positive change. Over and over again, we’ve seen that the miraculous experience of becoming a parent is a pivotal life moment. We have the opportunity to provide parents with a range of support, including basic life skills, at just that life-changing moment that can lead to progress out of poverty.

We know that we make a difference in the lives of our young moms.  The graduation rates of our “client” teen moms are double that of teen moms who don’t have such support. We know that our moms and babies are connected to health care and that half of them didn’t have that connection when we started working with them.

We know that our teen clients – both young men and women – are learning about choices.  Because of what they are learning and their understanding of the responsibilities of parenting, they are choosing not to have a second teen pregnancy.  They are choosing to continue their educations.  They are choosing not to engage in high-risk behaviors that lead to poor life outcomes.

We know that young parents are learning about their child’s development.  They are learning how to promote their babies’ development through observation, play, and reading to their babies each day.

Our Vision for Comprehensive Family Support Centers

To provide support to our young client families beyond the services we provide today.  We have a vision of making each of our facilities into a comprehensive family support center. Through these centers we will help more families, and make more resources available to all families that enroll.

To engage the surrounding community more intensively through our centers, in order to better serve our constituency.  Our Antioch First 5 Center is on its way toward becoming our model for such a community-based support center.   Through literacy activities, parenting courses, and activities like play groups, new parents and their babies are learning together. Moms are able to make friends with other moms in similar situations, and they are able to see how physical play, music, art and stories are essential to their child's learning and healthy development.  

To expand our resources to provide more families with the intensive assistance they need to become stable and solidly on the road to self-sufficiency. Right now, for the most part we can only help those who qualify for services funded by our government contracts.

We are striving for a day when we can –

• Serve any low-income family that needs perinatal support.
• Keep providing support to young parents as long as they feel they need it, and not just until they “age out” of a program.
• Provide special counselors for moms who are depressed or having a hard time with their babies.
• Implement a system that families can use to get on their feet economically – a system that is the cornerstone to family health and stability.

Because every family matters and every child deserves a happy, healthy future.