Daryl Bailey hires Montgomery pastor to lead program to support families

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) - Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey held a ceremony Friday afternoon at the Montgomery County Courthouse to officially welcome Tim Anderson as the new director of the Helping Montgomery Families Initiative. Bailey said the DA’s office started the program more than 10 years ago after noticing the success of a similar program in Mobile.

Now, Bailey says Montgomery County’s HMFI is a model for other areas that are wanting to create programs that offer a proactive approach to serving families with the goal of reaching young people in an attempt to keep them out of the criminal justice system.

“Tim was the best candidate, by far, for this position,” said Bailey. “He has a passion for young people, he’s smart and he can communicate. The best thing is he was actually one of these young people. He was going down that wrong path and someone took him in and showed him a better way. He has, not only the experience, but the passion that this job is going to need.”

Anderson’s role will be to lead the charge to connect families in Montgomery County with resources in the community.

“If you take the time to survey all of the awesome programs we have here, you’ll see there’s a huge variety,” said Anderson. “It’s really just a matter of all of us working together so we can help our families.”

The program receives support from a number of agencies, groups and departments including the City of Montgomery, Montgomery County and Montgomery Public Schools.

Anderson is also a pastor at Southside Church of Christ in Montgomery. He said he brings a unique perspective to the position.

“We live in a very divided time right now,” said Anderson. “Opinions are all over the place. The one place we should not have any ambiguity is about how to help our community.”

Bailey said Anderson’s ministry work will only add to the job he will do.

“I don’t think this is much different than being a pastor,” said Bailey. "A pastor is there to help people achieve a goal, and that’s what he’s going to be doing with us.

Anderson has been working in the position for about two weeks now brainstorming the best strategies to create partnerships and reach families, and he said he plans to put those plans into practice at the beginning of 2019.

He said agencies looking to help and families who need to be connect with resources are welcome to contact him at 832-2568 or timanderson@mc-ala.org

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