Children’s Board Family Resource Centers empower families, communities

Sandra Calvillo heard about the Children’s Board Family Resource Centers from the hospital where her daughter, Naria, was born.

“When we started coming to classes, she was two months old,” she says. “It was a baby massage class, to teach me how to soothe her and de-stress her, and then we moved on to the next stages of the baby classes, like when they’re starting to crawl, called the Baby & Me class. It taught you how to play with your child.”

Calvillo’s been coming back since. She takes Naria, now 8, and her son, Ky-Mani, 7, to a Family Resource Center every week for programming like math and reading classes.

There are seven Family Resource Centers around Hillsborough County, in locations like Plant City, Ruskin, Temple Terrace, and Town ‘n’ Country.

They are an outreach arm of the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County, which was created in a 1988 voter referendum as a special taxing district funding quality programs that “support the success of all children and families’’ in the county, according to its mission statement. With an approximately $101.9 million 2025-26 budget, it funds more than 90 nonprofits and 152 different programs that help children and families in Hillsborough.

It also provides funding to Lutheran Services Florida to manage the Family Resource Centers and organize free classes and activities for the community. Tyheshia Scott, Director of the Children’s Board Family Resource Centers, says last year the centers served 40,000 people and provided 285,000 services.

Solymar Medina oversees programming at the resource centers.

“Part of my job is just making sure that all of the centers are providing quality programming and then making sure that they are trained, that the staff is trained and ready to provide the services that we have in the calendar,’’ she says.

The Bay Care Hospital Mobile Medical Clinic makes monthly stops at the resource centers to provide uninsured families with wellness checks, immunizations, and vision and developmental screenings.

Parents and guardians can take Safe Sleep classes to learn the dangers of sleeping in the same bed with their babies or becoming frustrated and shaking them. They can learn how to properly choose and use a car seat for their babies. Safe Sitter classes are available for youngsters who want to be babysitters. Kids approaching puberty can take classes that teach about the physical and emotional changes they can expect.

Parents can bring their toddlers to play groups organized to help their social development. Kids do crafts and play games. Some programs teach math and reading skills. Glazer Children’s Museum staffers come to the centers to lead Learn and Play Tampa Bay bilingual playgroups. Kids and parents make new friends there. Parents create a networking environment “where you see families coming together,’’ Scott says.

“That’s really, really important that we create the environment so families can do that,’’ she adds.

Calvillo believes the instruction disguised as play that Naria and Ky-Mani received at the centers gave them a head start in school. As a result, they entered kindergarten with needed skills like reading, writing, coloring, and cutting with scissors. 

“They entered school already prepared,’’ Calvillo says.

At the centers, ReDefiners World Languages offers classes in Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish, and English. Many newcomers from other countries take English classes there. It’s a vital service, Scott says.

“I need parents to be able to advocate for their children. And the language that that generally happens in, in the school system, is English,’’ she says.

She tells of young girls who have to go into the doctor’s office with their mothers to translate, and a five-year-old who registered himself for school because he was the only one in the family who spoke English.

“Being able to create that place where that family can come in, we can give that child back his childhood,” Scott says.

All the centers are a little different, Medina says, because each community has a board of representatives that advises on services and events for their area.

“Today was one of the events,’’ she says, standing next to a table of donated children’s clothes at the Family Resource Center inside the Children’s Board’s Ybor City headquarters. “Families came in the morning, and they were able to grab some diapers, some clothing for the babies, and some other items.’’

While each center is unique, Scott says her staff makes sure they all provide the same level of service. All resource center staff members are Lutheran Services Florida employees, and when a new program is introduced, “we’re going out and making sure that every center and every staff member has the same level of understanding,” she says.

They aim to make sure families want to keep coming back.

“I tell my staff, we never know what a family goes through when they come through our door,” Scott says. “We want them to feel welcome, we want them to feel safe, and we want their needs to be met, recognizing that we may not always be the organization to do that. But we can connect them with someone.’’

Seeing kids improve their math and reading skills, seeing families that could not speak English now able to communicate, Medina is gratified by the impact the centers have on families. The stories of positive impact include her own mother, who earned a master’s degree in Puerto Rico, but didn’t know a word of English when she came to Florida. She took English classes at a Family Resource Center and eventually got a job as a teacher.

“That type of impact is what made me happy and made me committed to the Family Resource Centers,’’ Medina says.

For more information, go to Family Resource Centers or call (813) 229-2884.

This story is produced through an underwriting agreement between the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County and 83 Degrees Media