The Bruening Foundation’s responsive grantmaking strategy complements our proactive strategy to help families out of poverty. We believe that family relationships play a central role in shaping an individual’s well-being across the course of their life. These relationships can be a source of comfort, guidance and strength. Because kids need strong and supportive families to thrive, we seek to invest in parents and caregivers who raise them.
We employ a broad definition of family but most basically, a minor child(ren) and their trusted adult(s), which might include a parent, relative, legal guardian or other caregiver. Thriving Families funding priorities are: 1) Housing, Health and Skill Building; and, 2) Social and Emotional Well-Being.
Housing, Health and Skill Building
If families are unsafe or faced with social or economic disadvantages, it is difficult to provide the building blocks needed for family stability and well-being. The Bruening Foundation aims to support access and connections to housing, health, skill building and economic mobility. We will provide grants to organizations that provide services for adult caregivers with children in the areas of:
Housing – Emergency shelter and transitional housing, case management to support housing stabilization and connections to permanent housing, financial counseling/coaching to prepare for homeownership
Health – Navigation services to help locate and access appropriate healthcare and insurance, and connections to other resources that support health and well-being
Skill Building and Economic Mobility – Adult literacy, acquisition of high school equivalency credentials, job readiness and training, connections to employment including placement and retention services, financial literacy, case management and barrier removal, translation and English for Speakers of Other Language services for immigrants.
Social and Emotional Wellbeing
Social-emotional wellness is a person’s ability to understand and manage their emotions, make responsible decisions, build and maintain relationships, and understand and empathize with others. It’s important because it affects how individuals think, feel, and act. We aim to support promotion programs that strengthen family relationships, increase protective factors and bolster social-emotional wellness making individuals more likely to engage in healthy behaviors. Examples include:
- Programs that foster social and emotional competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making – with an established social-emotional learning curriculum, evaluation, and demonstrated outcomes
- Youth mentoring that aligns with MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership standards
- Evidence-based parenting programs that educate parents about child development, promote healthy parent-child interaction, and prevent or mitigate adverse childhood experiences
- Family-centered learning and play spaces
- Programs that aim to strengthen family relationships
- Parent café models
- Kinship and adoptive parent support programming
- Programs aimed at supporting relationships between children and their incarcerated parents
