Maui Family Support Services, Inc. Awarded Native Hawaiian Education Program Funds

Maui Family Support Services, Inc. has received a $776,400 award for services to individuals and families in Maui County.

Funding will support the agency’s Ho‘owaiwai Kaiāulu Project, which provides a continuum of services that promote the Protective Factors within families of children and youth in Maui County.

“These include increasing the social-emotional competence of children, increasing the parents’ knowledge of parenting and child development; improving social connections for families, building parental resilience, and providing and/or connecting families with concrete supports,” said Edel Baguio-Larena, MFSS CEO.

Services will include:

• Identifying families in need of support and providing community connections to resources;
• Providing parent support groups to decrease isolation, increase parenting skills, family literacy, and child development;
• Providing LifeSkills training to youth in intermediate and high schools to increase healthy decision-making skills and decrease risk-taking behaviors including substance/use and abuse;
• Providing one to one parent support, parenting education, and connection to community support through home visiting services with prenatal parents and families of children 0-5 years old; and
• Increasing school readiness and healthy child development via licensed infant and toddler care in Hāna.

This award will provide funding for the first of a possible three years of funding by the Native Hawaiian Education Program. 

MFSS is a private, non-profit agency incorporated in 1980 to provide early childhood development services to families in Maui. The agency has provided 40 years of continuous service to children and families of Maui County.

MFSS’s mission is to promote healthy family functioning by providing supportive services that build on family strengths.  The agency serves the islands of Maui, Lānaʻi, and Molokaʻi, with a prime directive to utilize collective resources toward the prevention of child abuse and neglect.