How Family-Friendly is your service agency?

Northwest Oklahoma is known for being warm and welcoming ---- a great place to raise a family.

The question is .....if you provide services to families raising children with special needs is your business family-friendly?

Do family members get to:

• help decide what services you offer
• help decide how the services will be offered
• help evaluate how things are going

The term family-friendly applies to how and to what extent organizations involve, welcome, and value the participation of family members in every aspect of the organization.

The Ohio Family Support Council has developed two Family Friendly Check Lists:

• one for families
• and one for staff in organizations.

The checklists can help organizations determine if they have adopted family friendly practices and may give their staff ideas for improving family friendly approaches in specific areas. Organizational administrators can even compare staff perceptions to family member responses.

If you're ready to put your agency to the test, you can download PDF copies of each checklist at:

Agency checklist:
http://olrs.ohio.gov/Other/checklistagency.pdf

Family member checklist:
http://olrs.ohio.gov/Other/checklistfamily.pdf