- We're now joined by Kelly Hart Executive Director of the Center for Family Resources.

Kelly, thank you for joining us.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Kelly, you were telling me right before we got on the air that the center is based in Passaic County.

- That's correct, yep.

We're at Passaic County.

- As the website goes up, tell everyone what the center is.

- So the Center for Family Resources we work with children and families in Passiac County.

We cover all of the county except for the cities of Passaic and Paterson.

We run Headstart and Early Headstart programs as well as a home-based program option for pregnant women and children.

We also have some community initiatives including rental and utility assistance as well as the Family Success Center.

- Now Kelly, your background and your becoming the Executive Director of the Center for Family Resources is interesting.

I have my notes but your communicating and sharing it is a lot more compelling, please.

- Yes, so this isn't the path that I thought I was going to take when I went to college.

So, I actually went to college for communications and I thought I'd be a film director, but now I'm a director in a different aspect.

I really found my love for working with the community, children, and families after college.

So I started as a teacher and then I went into our Family Success Center and worked directly with the community.

Went back to school for my master's in nonprofit leadership and management and here I am now as the Executive Director.

- Your ability to connect with families, particularly women, heads of families, women who are, obviously people don't need to hear this from me, there's more pressure on women in family situations than men in most situations.

Your ability to empathize and connect with those women, talk about that.

- So you said the word empathize.

So empathy, I think, is really where I've been able to get to where I am now.

I have found that I have this love and joy for connecting with families.

Women do, they do have it harder than maybe other people.

And Head Start and Early Head Start programs are for families that maybe have a lot of other circumstances around it.

And we wanna make sure that they get this headstart in life equal to somebody else who maybe has a better situation, whether that be financially or other risks, homelessness, teen parents, these are all things that affect women and children and Headstart really is able to give them these tools.

- So people hear Headstart, not everyone understands what it is.

Describe what Headstart is and the impact it has on families, particularly on children, who otherwise would not be getting a headstart.

- Right, so Headstart is a program from the federal government.

So it comes from the Office of Headstart, which is based in Washington DC, and it really gives the low income at risk families more of a chance to have this preschool education.

So that when they get into school they found that children that come from lower income families are behind when they get to school.

So we have created this program that's not just preschool, it's wraparound services too.

So we have staff that are able to work with children with their mental health and wellbeing.

We have family service workers who work directly with the families.

We have... Special needs are being met in our classrooms.

And this is all happening early on 'cause we have a option of pregnant women.

So it's pregnancy through when they go to public school at five.

- Really interesting to me because every organization, particularly in the not-for-profit community, struggles on so many levels.

But COVID, we're taping this in the spring of 2023, every journey, every pivot, every decision, every layoff, every cutting back, greater demand for services, trust me, there's a question here.

What would you say the most significant impact of the Pandemic has been?

Not just on your organization but on the people you serve every day.

- So, okay, so I have an answer for both of those.

- Sure, separate them.

Okay, do the organization first.

Do the organization first.

- Okay.

In terms of our organization I'm gonna say a pro and a con.

So the pro of COVID on our organization is it really forced us to become more tech savvy than we were.

So making sure that we can do virtual communication, making sure were able to have... everybody in the organization has an email, everybody has a computer, everybody has these means of working either from a virtual platform or in the office for when we weren't here.

The hardship of that was we lost some staff.

So we have found some of the positions harder to fill since COVID.

One of them being our Home Base program.

Home Base is a great program.

I actually was a pregnant woman in the Home Base program.

It's fantastic, but finding people who want to go into people's homes is hard, especially since COVID.

It's hard for the parents to want someone in their homes, for staff to wanna go into homes.

'Cause I think that risk of whether it be infectious disease or whatever, is kind of higher and heightened since COVID.

- So I wanna be clear.

So again, for us as well, a lot of con, a lot of negative, lot of problems, but also, and it's hard to say this because so many people suffered.

Talk about empathy.

So many people have suffered in so many ways particularly small businesses and others through COVID.

There have been some positives for us as well including our ability to do programming this way.

Now for our clients.

- Right.

- Those you serve, most significant impact.

- Behavior.

So we have found that children are really affected.

So whether its, kind of this...

I would say it's behavioral in a sense of the mental health of our children has really been affected since COVID.

And it's very evident when you go into some of our classrooms.

They're struggling so we're really trying to provide different supports.

Whether that be more parenting classes for our families, whether that be more outreach to different providers to be able to have mental health consultants on hand for both children and families.

So it's the mental health and wellbeing that's really affected the children and families that we serve.

- Before I let you go, Kelly, first of all, thank you for joining us.

We appreciate not only you being with us but sharing the story of the Center for Family Resources.

The greatest satisfaction you get from your work is?

- It's helping others.

So I love helping others and I was doing it at a community level and now it's not only the children and families but it's the staff.

And the staff that work for Center for Family Resources really are important and special to me.

And every day I want them to know I see them, I hear them, and I value them.

So that's really where I'm at.

(Kelly laughing) - Kelly Hart is Executive Director of the Center for Family Resources.

Kelly, we thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you so much.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, We'll see you right after this.