Child Development Resources recently signed a lease on a new training space that will help relieve overcrowding in its existing offices and facilitate classes associated with its popular Fatherhood program.
The 2,683-square-foot space, located at 210 Packets Drive in James City County, fulfills several needs the organization has been trying to meet recently, CDR Executive Director Paul Scott said.
“Primarily [the space] is to accommodate staff we needed to hire for our Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood program,” Scott said.
CDR was awarded a $682,981 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last October that will sustain its existing Fatherhood program offerings and continue to expand the program’s services and scope.
The grant has allowed CDR to begin the search for a new space in which to house its Fatherhood program staff, classes and trainings, and the Packet Drive location was well-suited to CDR’s purposes since it had previously been used as an emergency medical services training space.
Equipped with a large conference room, several offices, storage space and two observation rooms complete with one-way mirrors, the building will be able to offer much to both Fatherhood program staff and clients, but Scott said it will also be a boon to the rest of CDR.
“We’re just overcrowded in both of our [other] buildings,” Scott said of CDR’s two Norge-based offices.
Some employees will shift from those offices to the new space, and the staff in general will also use the conference rooms, meeting rooms and training spaces in the building, as needed.
The Packets Drive building also has an advantage by nature of its location, which is much closer to York County than the other offices.
Since CDR serves families throughout the Historic Triangle, the new satellite office can serve as a home base for staff making home visits to families in that area, rather than requiring them to travel all the way up to Norge, Scott said.
“When this grant was awarded it presented an opportunity to kill three bird with one stone, so to speak,” Scott said.
Scott hopes the new location will be up and running by the end of April, though many of the new Fatherhood program offerings may not launch until later this summer.
While the new space does much to alleviate crowding issues, Scott said the organization will be looking closely at putting together a strategic plan for all of its facilities in the coming months.
“One of our buildings needs renovations, so we’re in the middle of surveying space needs and making a plan,” Scott said. “The time has come to really rethink it all and in that way they timing of the grant was great.”
