Minnesota One-Stop For Communities is a nonprofit organization that has been helping parents since 2012 navigate the legal and logistical challenges of the child welfare system. Our goal is for parents to be reunited with their children and connect them with community resources to improve their family's quality of life.
One of the benefits of our Parent Mentor Program is we have firsthand experience with the child welfare system and although we serve all families, our emphasis is on black, brown, and indigenous families who face a disproportionate number of separations and typically wait longer for reunification. Having a Parent Mentor brings hope that recovery is possible and that children do come home.
about us
Since 2017, Minnesota One-Stop for Communities has been helping parents navigate the legal and logistical challenges of the child welfare system. Each year, thousands of children experience out-of-home care due to a lack of legal support, community resources, and mentoring for parents.
Our goal is to assist parents in reunification and connect them with community resources to improve their family's quality of life.
Why We DO What We DO
OUR VISION
The vision of Minnesota One-Stop for Communities is to strengthen and support individuals and families in communities to be safe, stable, and healthy.
OUR MISSION
The mission of Minnesota One-Stop for Communities is to support parents navigating the Child Protection System along with mentoring those recovering from substance abuse. We provide housing to single adults and families along with emergency shelters to bring them from homelessness to housing.
To accomplish the vision, our mission is carried out by utilizing our personal experiences along with available community and governmental programs to help guide and support parents in reuniting with their children as well as provide and guide them in obtaining temporary and permanent housing. It's also a tremendous opportunity for us to give back to our community and see families restored because we ourselves have been there.
Minnesota One-Stop works to strength the overall community by keeping families housed and by keeping families together. Most individuals and families served are low-income, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous People of Color) individuals and families with a history of interaction with child welfare, court systems, chemical dependency, domestic violence, housing insecurity, and homelessness. COVID has exacerbated the struggle of our communities to keep stable housing and to care for their children, and the ramifications of the pandemic are still affecting individuals and families in the communities we serve. This has presented some challenges in the delivery of our services, mainly due to the increased need of housing and child welfare navigation support. It has also increased the need for our advocacy for our families. Families had to struggle with visitation restrictions with children in foster care and had to face the challenges of virtual appointments and limited technology. Housing has become even more of a critical issue, especially for the families we serve because of the added barriers hindering their ability to secure stable housing. Some of these barriers include unlawful detainers, court records, as well as decreased income due to job loss, etc., because of the pandemic. The need for Parent Mentors and Housing Stability Services is only growing and we seek to grow our capacity to serve more families and individuals.
