The Helping Families Initiative started in 2003 as a school-community program in the District Attorney's Office of the 13th Judicial Circuit of Alabama (Mobile County) with the objective of identifying troubled youth in schools and connecting intervention services to their families.
In 2007 the District Attorney of the 15th Judicial Circuit started the Helping Montgomery Families Initiative and the 19th Judicial Circuit began the Helping Families Initiative, direct outgrowths of the Mobile program.
In 2014 HFI became an incubator program of the University of Alabama Center for Community Based Partnership where we refined our processes and spread HFI to more judicial circuits.
In 2016 HFI the Helping Families Initiative moved to Volunteers of America Southeast in Mobile.
The program is supported by combinations of local funding sources and a direct appropriation from the Alabama Legislature.