Working for Communities

ommunity Works (and its founding agencies YouthWorks, Ashland Adolescent Center and Crisis Intervention Center) has been providing services to the community for over thirty years. These include mental health and substance abuse treatment services to youth and their families (Youth and Family Counseling Services, CrossRoads, Lithia Springs Program, Dunn House); family stabilization (Reunification Services, Case Management, Parent Education); safe places (Dunn House); outreach to improve access to care (StreetWise, Dunn House Outreach, County Case Management) and community education and information (HelpLine, Personal Safety Program, Mentor Training). Our mission is to Strengthen Lives to Change Community and Strengthen Community to Change Lives. Our programs and services are intended to make our community a better place to live by providing the highest quality services possible. We are licensed to provide residential treatment, mental health treatment and substance abuse treatment. We are accredited by the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges (high schools) and the Council on Accreditation (agency programs). The second part of our mission speaks to our desire to change the way the community views issues of domestic violence, sexual assault, mental health, child abuse, substantive abuse, poverty, etc. We are involved in numerous community partnerships that are all intended to strengthen our community: Ashland Community Coalition, Central Points Children’s Initiative, Jackson County and Ashland Chambers of Commerce, to name a few.

Through Parent Education we provide research-based services, designed and shown (by the national “Strengthening Families” model) to increase participants’ understanding of 1) child development, 2) positive parenting practices, 3) child abuse/neglect prevention, and 4) family boundaries.  We combine this information with 20 years experience teaching Parent Education Classes and Workshops in Jackson County.  Our program is based on the premise that child abuse can be significantly reduced through these activities, and we believe that parent education is a “cornerstone” for supporting parents, and especially for working with 'at risk' families to reduce the chance of child maltreatment (as described by Tomison, in Issues in Child Abuse Prevention 1998).   Some of the classes we provide are to high-risk teenagers, this is truly a way to break the cycle of abused children growing into abusive parents; and working with at-risk families has also been shown to make notable changes for the better.

Our Parent Education facilitators provide classes to teens, at-risk families and to the general population as a whole.  The information and education provided helps families to create healthy boundaries, prevent child abuse, develop positive parenting practices, and understand normal child developmental stages. 

For more information about Community Works, call (541) 779-2393 or visit its website at www.community-works.org