Five Questions With: Keith Tavares

Keith Tavares of Newport has been chairman of the Newport Partnership For Families since 2013. He also is vice president of institutional advancement for Child & Family. From 2011-13, he served as vice chairman of the nonprofit NPFF and had been a representative for Child & Family at that time. Here he discusses his work to spearhead a redevelopment plan for the nonprofit.

PBN: How many partners comprise the Newport Partnership for Families and how does the nonprofit interact with them?
TAVARES:
The Newport Partnership just celebrated its 25th year of supporting families in Newport County. It is a collaborative comprised of 37 member organizations, which include social service agencies, businesses, and community entities. They all play a vital role in the partnership’s success. If they did not all work well together to create solutions for community issues, the partnership would not have lasted for 25 years.
The member organizations vary in size with both small (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, Edward King Senior Center, etc.) and large (Child & Family, East Bay Community Action, Boys Town New England, etc.) social service providers, Newport public schools, the city of Newport, Newport Housing Authority, Salve Regina University and the Community College of Rhode Island, as well as large businesses, like BankNewport and People’s Credit Union.
Their work with the organization depends on available resources they can provide at any given time, as well as interest in the community issue we are looking to tackle. For instance, we do not expect Newport public schools to be putting a lot of their resources into elder care issues, but we know they are very interested in chronic absenteeism and truancy. The Edward King Center, MLK Community Center and Child & Family are interested in elder services.

PBN: While leading work on the nonprofit’s redevelopment plan, how have you used the plan to address chronic absenteeism and truancy?
TAVARES:
For me, it is a question of making sure the right people are leading the plan to solve the issue of chronic absenteeism and truancy. I do not have a background in education or public schools, but I do know the community very well and I know which organizations and community leaders are the right ones to bring to the table for the needed discussion around the issue and for developing a plan to solve it.
Sharon Carter, director of the partnership, and Rob Archer, Child & Family’s vice president of community programs, lead the group that has developed a plan to solve the issue. I needed to get both of them as well as other key community leaders to begin the process of planning, which they have done incredibly well.

PBN: What is the goal of the Community Resource Mapping Project and how does the new website facilitate its implementation?
TAVARES
: The project is designed to be a resource for the residents of Newport County. It gives them the ability to access needed services, activities, volunteer opportunities, and upcoming events through a one-stop resource.
When we went through our organizational redevelopment plan, we conducted interviews, focus groups, and surveys in order to find out what community members were looking for and one of the constants was a way to find local services, whether it be health care, housing, senior activities, child care, counseling, etc.
The new website provides this service and much more. You can identify which organizations have volunteer opportunities, which provide financial counseling, which have a food pantry, which provide afterschool activities, etc. In addition, the calendar section will provide information on upcoming seminars, community events and more. The best part of the site is that each member organization can update their information as it changes through their own access. The partnership members make up the majority of social services organizations in Newport County. We are capturing most services for our community in one location.

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PBN: What other key issues does your organization help address?
TAVARES:
The Newport Partnership for Family’s goal is to be realistic and not take on more than it can chew. So we are tackling two core issues at a time, and as each is tackled, we will select a new one until it is solved.
We know the community’s resources are limited and we want to implement this plan right the first time. So, we are working to resolve underage substance abuse as well as chronic absenteeism. We are working closely with the Newport Substance Abuse Taskforce.

PBN: What are your goals over the next five years in terms of growth?
TAVARES
: Over the next five years we will hopefully have solved the chronic absenteeism issue and taken on some new critical issues facing Newport County families. We will also be monitoring the use of our new Community Resource Mapping Project (including the new website) to ensure its success as a tool for the communities we serve.
Building our membership will be a priority. We will want to bring in those organizations that are not yet members of the partnership so that their voices, resources and talents can be a part of providing community solutions in a collaborative way – always with the our sights on collective impact.

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