ABSTRACT
The initial program design, based on a family preservation model, focused on supporting parents with home-based services. The federal Office of Head Start funded Family Service Center (FSC) demonstration projects in three waves from 1990 to 1993. In a review of lessons learned from comprehensive programs similar to many of the FSC programs, M. Stagner and A. Duran noted that experience in launching and sustaining these programs is very difficult work due to turf issues and differences in level of commitment between agencies. A national evaluation was planned within the first year of the initiation of the FSCs. The Head Start Bureau emphasized the importance of both the local and national evaluations, even though there was a considerable difference in the amount and type of investment made in each of these. The majority of the Bridgeport FSC parents disclosed in genograms that substance abuse had been a problem for their families over the last three to five generations.
