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Why was APA Family Support Services founded?
Founded in 1987 by Dr. Don Wong, APA consists of professionals and experienced home visitors who help families at-risk cope with the challenges of raising young children. The obstacles created by language barriers and by cultural conflicts in conjunction with ignorance of western medicine, child care practices, and appropriate parenting skills often prevent our families from seeking and finding the resources necessary to overcome their difficulties. There is a pressing need for agencies like APA to address the problems within the Asian community.

APA is a non-profit agency with locations at San Francisco General Hospital and at Chinatown. We are the only hospital based in-home program in California specifically serving high risk Asian newcomers in transition by providing a cost-effective, culturally acceptable and comprehensive model of intervention.

Who does APA Family Support Services serve?
Asian Pacific Islanders are 30% of San Francisco's population, many of whom are recent immigrants. The "model minority" reputation of Asians often precludes the acknowledgment of problems within the Asian Pacific Islander community. Our goal is to provide services to promote and maintain a safe and happy home environment for Asian families experiencing life changes.

Many of our new mothers are recent immigrants or refugees from China or Southeast Asia who were traumatized before they came here with post-war traumatic disorder. Others came as picture brides in arranged marriages. Family violence, social isolation, depression, and financial hardship are commonplace. Due to their cultural beliefs and language barriers, APA may be the only link these Asian mothers have to western society and its resources.

How does Asian Pacific Advocates serve the community?
APA provides follow-up medical services to Asian families with newborn infants and children under five years of age. We offer a weekly Well Baby Clinic to ensure continuity of care for our high risk Asian babies. We aim to provide a culturally sensitive approach of well baby care with emphasis on dispelling some of the superstitions, myths and beliefs which interfere with proper infant care methods and child rearing practices. During APA clinic visits, our medical providers also give timely immunization shots and discuss relevant health care issues to assist our families in securing good medical follow-ups. We also offer a weekly Infant Care workshop in Cantonese for postpartum mothers during their stay at the hospital.

Our bilingual/bicultural home visitors provide weekly/monthly in-home visits to help our newcomer parents understand the concepts of child development, as well as the physical and emotional needs of their children. Home visitors focus on teaching proper infant care, nutrition, safety measures, and parenting skills. Special emphasis is placed on education with appropriate bilingual literature, brochures, and video tapes regarding breast/bottle feeding, bathing, cord care, proper diet, emergency help, and birth control. These services are provided for two years and are available in Cambodian, Cantonese, Laotian, Mandarin, Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese.

We provide emotional support to Asian families dealing with the many stresses they experience in a new culture with a new baby. Our non-threatening, in-home counseling approach has been instrumental in detecting early aberrant behavior, dysfunctional parent-child relationships, and explosive marital problems. We aim to prevent child abuse and neglect through early identification and intervention.

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