Reuniting Children With Their Families

The EMQ FamiliesFirst Family Finding program helps children find more lasting, permanent, and loving homes.

Read more about the children we serve and their stories:

	Connor's Story "We were parents, not therapists. So, we knew he needed much more than we could provide.." » Read this Story

Jack's Story “Tagging, cutting, depressed and acting out, Jack was headed for gang life.” » Read this Story

	Carla's Story Carla's middle school counselor referred her to EMQ because of her difficult and disruptive behavior, irritability and anger that she showed to her teachers and peers. » Read this Story

Samantha's Story At age six, Samantha entered the foster care system. Thus began her roller coaster ride of jumping from foster home to foster home... » Read this Story

	Tyler's Story "I don't belong (in a school for severely emotionally disturbed children) he told his EMQ team. Please get me out!" » Read this Story

Sara's Story Sara's sister died of cancer four years ago. Sara had been grieving since that time... » Read this Story

	Barry's Story When 9-year-old Barry came to EMQ, he was so hyperactive he couldn't hold still for even a minute... » Read this Story

Emily's Story "I was masking my emotional hurt with the physical hurt that cutting (myself) gave me." » Read this Story

	Matt's Story Drugs and illness pulled Matt's family apart. EMQ helped put it back together. » Read this Story

Frank's Story "Since reconnecting with his family, Frank's excessive anger has tapered off..." » Read this Story

	Ethan's Story "He had been experiencing delusions and hallucinations." » Read this Story

Javier's Story 6-year-old Javier was hearing voices telling him to harm himself... » Read this Story

» More Success Stories

Confidentiality of EMQ FamiliesFirst children and families has been preserved
through the use of models. Some stories may be composites of multiple cases.

Preserving the family, healing the child

At EMQ FamiliesFirst we believe children need families, not institutions.Our Wraparound program is an innovative family-centered, community-based program, serving children who have been, or are at risk of being, removed from their family because of serious emotional and behavior challenges. EMQ FamiliesFirst works to keep these families together—providing support to build safe and healthy family connections, while teaching new approaches to solving problems. EMQ FamiliesFirst is the leading provider of children’s mental health and social services in California, helping more than 18,000 children and family members annually. Our mission is mission is to do whatever it takes to help children, strengthen families, build communities and advocate for change.

Make a difference in a child’s life

» Click here to learn how you can personally help change a child's life.