The Family Effect

Providing Hope, Healing Families, Eliminating Addiction

The Family Effect empowers you to make a difference in our community by supporting the work of the Phoenix Center.

We believe that families are the fertile soil from which all good things grow.  But what is happening to our families in the Upstate?  In a typical year for Greenville County:

5,000 children can't live with their parents

2,420 domestic assaults are reported

1,326 children are confirmed as neglected or abused

559 children are removed from their home by the state

1,100 first-graders are unprepared for a successful start in school

1,000 students drop out of high school, never to return

The numbers can be overwhelming.  Many local nonprofits and government agencies are working very hard- and spending a combined $25 million in Greenville County every year - to glue these broken families back together. 

But what is making so many families come apart?  Find just about any nonprofit program director working on the front lines, and ask them that question.  You will hear an overwhelmingly common answer-addiction in the home is at the root of the problem.

Addiction is breaking our families apart from the inside out.

We all pay a heavy price for addiction in the home.  Greenville County taxpayers spend more than $500 million each year on the widespread collateral damage of addiction, including the staggering healthcare and law enforcement costs generated by the problem.  That translates to a $1,300 tax burden on every man, woman and child in Greenville County - every year.

The children suffer the most. 

Addiction in the home creates more abused and neglected kids, more unprepared first-graders and more high school dropouts than any other single root cause. 

And the negative effects can be permanent for children.  When kids live in a household where addiction is present, they are 4 times more likely to become addicted themselves.

The Family Effect is working to change these dynamics at their root.

We raise money and recruit volunteers for effective, research-based programs at The Phoenix Center of Greenville that focus on children and families.

And there is good news! Greenville is home to some extraordinary programs that effectively reduce addiction’s impact in the family home.  When the bottleneck of addiction is removed for a family, good things start to happen on their own-with less government and nonprofit intervention, and much less public cost.

Please join us.