Chuck Keers has been hired to replace Executive Director Vicki Ertle who is retiring after 20 years leading the Family Resource Center of Central Oregon. Keers comes with a 35-year history of working with nonprofits serving children and families and has a record of expanding services, collaboration and strengthening administrative systems.
“I’m extremely honored to be given the opportunity to work here and serve this community,” Keers said. “Nothing is more important than the healthy development of our children. Most of us learned how to raise our children by watching our parents, but for many of us that was a long time ago. The art and science of healthy parenting has advanced like everything else and there are new tools, programs and research we now know about that can help virtually any parent deal more effectively with the challenges of raising a child today.”
The board of directors of the Family Resource Center went through an extensive recruitment and selection process assisted by human resource specialists at Express Employment Professionals. “We wanted to be sure we found someone who could take the Family Resource Center to the next level,” Board Chair Leah Appel said. “Parenting is a tough job. We believe there are thousands of parents out there who want to improve their parenting skills.
Our current challenge is to expand access to our classes so that more families have the tools they need to lead healthier, happier lives.”
The Family Resource Center of Central Oregon traces its roots back to community forums in the late 1980s where local families and citizens requested a place for parents and caregivers to go for information and support in their job as parents. Its mission is to strengthen and support family relationships by serving as the Central Oregon source for parenting education, information and resources. The Family Resource Center provides a variety of multi-week parenting classes and shorter workshops to hundreds of parents, grandparents and caregivers each year, serves as the Central Oregon 2-1-1 Information Hub and leads the regional Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative.
Chuck Keers, Executive Director
1130 NW Harriman, Suite B
Bend, Oregon 97701
Office: 541-389-5468
