The Foundation for Delaware County is introducing a new program, ‘Family Village’— uniting health, housing, and hope for families.
Family Village integrates vital programs that address the social and economic factors shaping family health and stability.
The Foundation for Delaware County, a leading community foundation in the region, announced the launch of Family Village, a comprehensive initiative dedicated to ensuring all children in Delaware County have a strong start in life.
The initiative integrates a robust constellation of supportive programs designed to address health, well-being, and the social determinants of health for pregnant women, new parents, infants, and families.
For more than 40 years, these maternal and child health programs have quietly supported families across our community (first through the Crozer Keystone Health System and since 2016 through the Foundation).
Now unified under the Family Village name, this cohesive identity strengthens and expands the ability to serve more than 8,500 families each year.
Family Village is a centralized hub where families can access supportive services for pregnancy through early childhood, all in one place.
The initiative is uniquely positioned to respond to urgent local needs.
Maternal mortality has nearly doubled nationally in just three years, and Chester has the highest infant mortality rate in Pennsylvania.
The recent hospital closures and policy changes at the federal level have exacerbated health disparities and limited access to care for families in Delaware County.
Family Village connects families with a multidisciplinary team of 65+ professionals, over 75 percent certified in their fields and many with lived community experience, to provide personalized, one-on-one support.
Core programs include:
● Healthy Start & Nurse-Family Partnership: Home visits by community health workers and nurses, programs for fathers and partners, and doulas offering birth support and childbirth, parenting, and infant care education and advocacy.
● WIC Clinics: Three county locations providing healthy food access, nutrition education, and breastfeeding support.
● HOPE: Housing stability, advocacy, and financial literacy services—at roughly one-tenth the cost of shelter care.
● Mental Health Services and Civil Legal Aid: Support for postpartum depression, benefits access, and eviction prevention.
● Doula Training, Services, and Advocacy: Workforce development and policy leadership that helped make Pennsylvania the 13th state to cover doula services through Medicaid.
Through its collaborative advocacy, Family Village has helped spark transformative community efforts, including supporting the creation of the Delaware County Health Department, launching the Chester Community Consortium for Maternal and Infant Health, and the Delaware County Rental Housing Coalition.
Building on that momentum, Family Village envisions a future where no parent raises a child alone.
Family Village welcomes support to help ensure that no one in Delaware County raises a child alone or without the resources the county’s youngest children need to thrive.
Stay Connected at the Family Village website.
You can also find them on Facebook and Instagram at @delcofamily village.
The Foundation is the largest grantmaking philanthropy in Delaware County.
One of 900 community foundations across the U.S., the Foundation offers support and resources for nonprofits of every size, helps generous people give with more impact, brings together funders, nonprofits, and elected officials to address critical community problems, and responds to major challenges and crises in Delaware County as they arise.
In addition to grant funding, the Foundation operates the Center for Nonprofit Excellence to strengthen Delaware County’s nonprofit community through training workshops and peer learning opportunities.
The Foundation encourages philanthropy by connecting donors to worthy causes through efficient charitable giving vehicles like donor-advised and scholarship funds.
The Foundation hosts Delaware County’s annual giving day – Delco Gives. Delco Gives has raised nearly $4 million for hundreds of nonprofits since it launched in 2024.
