Lutheran Social Services of Northwestern Ohio
New Staff Profile

Name: Kit E. Werth

Title: Director of Family Resource Centers (FRC)

Previous work experience: Assistant Director for the Jordan Family Development Center and Administrator, QMR, Recreation Coordinator for the Filling Memorial Home.

Job Overview: I am responsible for planning, implementation, evaluation and overall function of the Crossroads and Open Dorr Family Resource Centers.

What are your goals for your new position? My personal goals are to support the competent and dedicated staff at the FRC and to continue helping the families we are serving. I also want to develop and implement other programs to reach more families to help them become more self-sufficient.

Additional comments: I have a master’s of education degree in exercise science and hope to be able to utilize this knowledge in the health and wellness of all the clients and families we work with at the family resource centers.

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Crossroads, Open Dorr Are Resources For Area Families

When it comes to supporting and uplifting families – especially those in need – in the Toledo area, few centers do as much as a pair of family resource centers supported by Lutheran Social Services of Northwestern Ohio.

Open Dorr Family Resource Center, which is located inside Dorr Elementary School on 1205 King Road, and Crossroads Family Resource Center, which is housed in Reformation Lutheran at 4543 Douglas Road, both have earned praise for their efforts to provide neighborhood-based programs that help families achieve and maintain self-sufficiency, stability and overall well-being.

“Bill Kitson, the president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Toledo, said his organization is looking for programs that impact both early childhood issues and the empowering of ‘vulnerable’ families,” said Lucy Wayton, Northern Region director for LSSNWO. “He said he saw our agencies were being aggressive – and that was his word – in addressing both of those needs in our area.”

Open Dorr, which started in 1995, serves nearly 400 clients while Crossroads, which opened roughly two years ago, already has a 150-person client base. The programs offered at the two family resource centers are similar.

Among those programs are:

Help Me Grow & Learn: A program that helps families with children ages three years old to pre-kindergarten learn child care and parenting skills. Open Dorr was one of the pilot centers for this program in Lucas County.

Parenting Plus Group: A program that gives tips and tools to improve parenting skills for all ages.

Counseling programs: Both centers offer counseling that can focus on a variety of areas, including dealing with divorce, grief and other areas of daily living; depression; trauma; and other behavioral problems.

Case management: Both centers offer supervision to help families become more stable and meet basic needs.

And the two centers also provide some unique individual programs – programs that may eventually become common to both.

For example, Open Dorr hosts a program called, “Open Dorr to Success.” It’s a five-day-a-week program that provides elementary-age students with after-school assistance in a variety of areas, including homework assistance.

Open Dorr also in involved with Project Omega, which offers group counseling for women and children who have been touched by domestic violence. It’s a program that hopefully will be offered at Crossroads in the near future.

Crossroads has a unique program known as Parent-Teen Interactive Group, in which both parents and teens learn communication and conflict resolution skills.

Another initiative that soon will be offered is Project Safe Start, a collaborative effort with several other Toledo agencies that will work through Help Me Grow and Help Me Grow & Learn to offer aid to families with children ages newborn to five who have been touched by domestic violence and other trauma.

Wayton said both Open Dorr and Crossroads always can benefit from the work of volunteers in the areas of tutoring, helping after-school programs, providing help with “odds and ends” and even leading enrichment programs.

“Volunteers who have skill in different crafts and hobbies can share those hobbies with the children in these programs,” Wayton said.

If you would like to offer volunteer service at either family resource center, please call Open Dorr at (419) 867-5733 or (419) 867-1838; the phone number to volunteer at Crossroads is (419) 475-3258.

Crossroads, Open Dorr Services Recognized

The United Way of Greater Toledo has identified the community impact initiatives that focus on helping individuals and families struggling to survive and help them thrive within Lucas, Wood and Ottawa counties. Top on the list are Lutheran Social Services Northern Region Family Resource Centers such as Crossroads and Open Dorr, both of which have been identified for effectively serving our community with care and professional excellence.

The United Way of Greater Toledo selected these programs to receive financial support that can be described in no other words than generous and beyond our expectations. It is an honor to welcome this support and also humbling to now share the responsibility of earning the trust of our community and partner agencies in delivering quality services to people and families in our service area who seek help in a time of need.

Crossroads, Open Dorr as well as the Toledo, Bowling Green, Perrysburg offices, counselors and therapists stand ready to help all who come seeking help as we work together to build on The Rock in Uncertain Times. We welcome all persons and provide the very best care and services wherever we can throughout greater Toledo and northwest Ohio.

Watch for Eastern Region, Sandusky County United Way successes in the next issue of the Messenger.