Support most vulnerable & fight against isolation

Families, including lone-parent families, account for more than 50% of the situations Secours Catholique receives each year, making tehm our priority audience. For 70 years now, Secours Catholique has developed many ways to help them, from school tutoring for children, through workshops, social groups, social grocery stores or solidarity shops and this, not counting the financial support paid to families individually.

To go even further in this accompaniment and with the concern of getting the families out of precariousness for a long time, Secours Catholique, developed various support system for parenthood such as "Families' Houses",  which primary mission is to help parents regain confidence and find solutions to their difficulties. We wish today to present you another model tested in the Loire department.

Context
The city of Saint Etienne is the 14th most populous municipality in France with 171,057 inhabitants, and the 2nd municipality of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. The town is also at the heart of a vast urban area of more than 515,240 inhabitants, the seventeenth of France by its population, comprising 117 municipalities. With nearly 400,000 inhabitants, Saint-Étienne Métropole is the third largest intercommunality of Rhône-Alpes, behind Greater Lyon and Grenoble-Alpes Métropole. It appears in retreat compared to its two neighbors in terms of economic weight and wealth of its inhabitants.

Thus, the median tax revenue in 2010 was only 17,000 euros per year and per unit of consumption. This is 15% less than in the other two cities and 7% below the level of France excluding Île-de-France. Situations of precariousness are also more frequent. Nearly a quarter of households living below the poverty line, or 40,000 households. The unemployment rate is higher and the qualification of jobs lower.

Presentation and purpose of the "Families" project
Based on the observation that Secours Catholique wasn't present throughout the city of Saint-Etienne, our team in Loire launched a large participatory process to discuss on a reorganization of the activities on the territory. Indeed, Secours Catholique is very present in the city center, a little in the north but absent from the south of the city. Among the results of this discussion, we can mention the wish to create:
- A reception center for people in isolation,
- A specialized reception for asylum seekers
- A Roma team (intervention in particular in the Roma village of La Chaumassière)
- A project centered around families in precariousness.

All these projects have since yielded except for the "Families" project, lack of local.

The idea of the Families project is based on the wish to develop a specific support and parenting support action for parents with young children. This action, previously non-existent in Saint-Etienne territory, will be materialized by a space open to parents with young children with a dual purpose:
- A quality welcome place for young children (from 0 to 4 years old) and parents (or adults involved in the education of the child),
- A point of sale of second-hand baby equipment, support for meeting and accompaniment.

The objectives of this place, open to all parents:
- Help families to identify and develop their skills in order to regain confidence in their educational abilities,
- Make this place a tool for social integration and empowerment for families,
- Promote social bond and mutual help by developing collective times,
- Accompany families in making or resuming contact with existing common law mechanisms.

The target territory is the south of the city of Saint-Etienne, where currently the Secours Catholique offers no activity for families with young children. It is a territory where people in fragility are more numerous, hence the emergence of new needs, especially in childcare equipment. It responds to a real demand that the project team was able to verify during its exchanges with local social institutions but also during visits to associative partners, nurseries and other social centers. The project, built by the volunteers of St Etienne, according to the French Family Allowance, is the only one of its kind in the Loire department.

One of the strengths of this project is that it benefits from the commitment of competent early childhood volunteers from the health sector who are keen to bring this project to fruition, to bring their expertise to the families.

At first, it is envisaged to open the place 2 half days a week, with gradual rise.

The planned works
A local has been identified, on Docteur Charcot Street in Saint Etienne. This local, initially sold for € 50,000 was finally donated to Secours Catholique, the owner having been touched by the willingness and commitment of the team to complete his project. This is an old 180 m² printing house, located on the ground floor of a building dating from the 70s. It is lit by two large windows and has two accesses in opposition, which would facilitate compliance. with respect to fire safety standards. The room can be made accessible to people with reduced mobility through a transformation of the entrance, which can not anyway remain in the state due to its level of degradation. This is an empty concrete board, with some landscaping work to do.

The first estimates made by an architect suggest a necessary investment of about €150,000 to rehabilitate the place and develop it for the reception. This envelope includes the following items:
- Pre-diagnosis,
- Cleaning the site,
- Replacement of showcases,
- False ceiling, doubling of peripheral walls, partitioning,
- Flooring,
- Electricity,
- Modification of the heating,
- Creation of sanitary
- Furniture and equipment.

In addition, this school will eventually be able to host complementary activities around parenting and others, for example, French learning workshops.

We are currently in the process of seeking financing around this project. Work should start in early 2019.

Of course we will keep you posted about this new project.

• 20181126_Accueil_familles_St_Etienne.pdf (PDF)