Dawson County Family Connection: Building Bridges to Wellbeing

3-minute read – 3/14/22

Working with 159 counties within the Georgia statewide network, the dedicated team at Dawson County Family Connection strives to provide every single child in the county an opportunity to live, learn, and grow in a safe and healthy environment.

This “all-hands-on-deck” approach to restoring broken families and establishing measurable objectives, to protect and nurture vulnerable children, is where the ACU family steps in.

Because ACU generously supports Dawson County Family Connection, we help build bridges to wellbeing and create a space where problems can be identified and community advocates can have a helping hand in the solution.

The strong partnership between organizations dedicated to providing opportunities for individuals to become self-sufficient, allows the Collaborative Committee in Dawsonville to have a constant pulse on specific needs in the community.

So, when the staff at Dawson County Family Connection and community partners sat down to discuss this year’s objectives, two of the most pressing issues quickly surfaced, and a plan of attack to safeguard children and families was launched:

• Improve mental wellness
• Improve family stability

A healthy family structure, typically, sets a child on a path to becoming an emotionally stable, productive member of society; but when this foundation is absent or corrupt, urgent attention must be given to the situation. At times, to put an immediate stop to emotional or physical harm, or when it is no longer safe for children to remain in the home, they are removed and placed, temporarily, into a dynamic family environment we all know as foster care.

With roughly 80 at-risk youths currently in the foster care system in Dawson county and only nine local families to care for these children, the dire need for healthy family representation is imperative but there is hope.

Dawson County Family Connection fills in the gap between critical needs and relevant, available resources.

In order to grow family stability, this year’s goals for Dawson County Family Connection is to increase local fostering to promote higher rates of family reunification in the county.

On March 1st ACUF presented a check for $5,000 to Dawson County Family Connection to assist with the distribution of wellness brochures, the formation of a family support group, and much-needed recruitment and training of foster care parent candidates.

When you donate time or money to the ACU Foundation, your gift goes much further than you will ever be able to see, but the impact of the hope you give is visible, contagious, and undeniable today. Your generosity helps to create life-changing opportunities for young children and families to become healthy and resilient. Because of you, they have a bridge to wellbeing and joyful tomorrows.