Fort Worth ISD Family Action Center 

The Fort Worth ISD Family Action Center (FAC) is now open in a new facility adjacent to Sunrise McMillan Elementary School and the Stop Six-Walter B. Barbour Health Center JPS Health Center.  Due to Covid-19 restrictions, most FAC services are being delivered on a vlrtual basis until further notice.

This initiative is a result of the combination of resources of two departments within the FWISD Division of Equity and Excellence: the Historic Stop Six Initiative and the Eastside Alliance Community Partnership. This strategic move allows for a seamless, more robust delivery of client wraparound services and referrals, primarily for eastsiders, focused on behavioral and physical health services, as well as community resources for food, shelter and job security. The initial focus is on students, families and individuals living in east and southeast Fort Worth, particularly those within the Eastern Hills and Dunbar high school attendance zones which includes more than 20 schools and 15,000 students.

The FAC operates similarly to the FWISD Family Resource Centers with a couple of difference: FAC staff adds valuable community resource assistance beyond behavioral health needs, and the FAC serves students, families and individuals who are not necessarily current FWISD clients. This includes pairing people up with services for rent and utility assistance programs, job openings, adult education training opportunities, food assistance, housing assistance, clothing and toiletries, Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) applications and more.

The FAC is also offering online and (in the future) in-person classes and seminars -- called FAC Time Conversations -- to help uplift, educate, inform, and, more importantly, empower people in the community to make positive changes in their lives. 

Last year the FAC began offering behavioral and physical health co-located services, as well as community resource assistance, out of a temporary facility on the campus of the FWISD Young Men’s Leadership Academy while the new center was being built adjacent to Sunrise E.S. A list of our current co-located service providers and links to their websites can be found here.

Although plans to open the new FAC were temporarily stalled at the onset of Covid-19 in March 2020. However, in the interim, a high level of client service and intake has been continually maintained by the FAC's clinical staff to connect residents, families and students to the resources they need to obtain mental, emotional, physical health and community resources.

Currently most of the co-located providers are operating remotely with virtual client contact, but as the COVID-19 situation improves and restrictions are lifted, so, too, will our partners' ability to resume in-person assistance.

The FAC has found many ways to provide community services to eastsiders this year, including: distributing more than 10,000 family food boxes during the summer; coordinating a 10,000 box, multi-week United Way-funded food distribution at six targeted residential areas in Tarrant County; installation of air conditioning units in homes of elderly residents in Stop Six; working with the TCU Coach Gary Patterson Foundation to distribute student, parent and pet activity kits at several schools and community centers during the height of the COVID-19 breakout; back-to-school welcoming events; campus meal distributions and more.