Kiri

Hello Director-General Maripuu, Ms. Berkman, and Ms. Mand, 

Hope that all is well with you and your important work in Estonia.  I was first introduced to part of it when your colleagues represented your Child Helpline well at the recent International Consultation of Child Helplines in Zambia that I was invited to present at.

My name is Andrew Russo and I am the Co-Founder of the new International Association of Family Support Networks (IAFSN), a membership organization of national networks of Family Resource Centers (FRCs).    

I will be visiting Estonia next week, September 16-18 before I go to present at the ISPCAN Congress and Policy Forum in Vilnius, Lithuania on October 6-9.

Although it is short notice, I wanted to try to reach out to ask if I might connect with you or your colleagues while I am visiting to learn about the landscape of family support programs in Estonia, to understand if you know if any programs like FRCs exist, and if not, to identify stakeholders who might be interested in learning about them and exploring their potential relevance.  If it would be better to have a Zoom meeting at a later date, that would be good too.

Independent research has shown FRCs make a significant difference in supporting families to thrive, including yielding a $4.93 social return on investment for every U.S. dollar invested, and a 63% reduction in child maltreatment cases.  

There are thousands of FRCs around the world, and national Networks of FRCs on four continents: Australia, Asia (Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore, Europe (France, Finland, Ireland, and Sweden), and North America (Canada and the United States.)

Exploring FRCs and FRC Networks is especially timely and relevant as both individual non-governmental organizations and leaders of systems in countries focus on increasing parenting support as called for by the Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children in Bogotá, reducing families’ involvement in the child protection system, reducing out of home placement of children, and implementing the INSPIRE Seven Strategies for ending Violence Against Children.

Similarly, in a time of diminished funding resources, FRCs can be an effective strategy for countries at various stages of development.  They are low cost, readily replicated, and have been demonstrated through multiple independent evaluations to yield substantial savings on preventing the need for high-cost downstream interventions.

Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely,