Deaconess Impact Partners (click a partner to view a detailed profile)
Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center
Mission:To improve the quality of life for children, families and the community, utilizing education and social services and developing positive values and self esteem.
Chief Executive Officer: Richard King
Need in the Community: Thousands of children and families in the St. Louis area face difficult challenges, and a host of those young children and teens need family support and social services to meet their educational goals and foster positive values and self-esteem.
Strategy: Annie Malone, located in the Greater Ville neighborhood of St. Louis, has served St. Louis children, their families, and the community for over a century. Named in honor of a generous supporter and board chair for over 20 years, Annie Malone provides residential treatment, day care, early childhood education, parenting classes, crisis intervention, counseling, adoption support, respite, and other outreach services to children and families. Visit at
www.anniemalone.com
According to Richard King, CEO, capacity building has helped Annie Malone to:
- Establish a Resource Development Department;
- Upgrade IT so that every staff person now has access to a computer; and
- Complete a strategic plan.
Christian Activity Center
Mission: The Christian Activity Center is committed to providing holistic growth opportunities to children, youth, and families living in East St. Louis.
Executive Director: Rev. Chet Cantrell
Need in the Community: East St. Louis is a particularly underserved community within the St. Louis metropolitan area, with a great many children from single-parent families living in poverty in housing projects.
Strategy: The Christian Activity Center, serves children and families who live within walking distance of their facility through after-school and summer programs providing educational support, music, sports, and arts. In addition, CAC provides health screenings and assessments to families in the community, and serves as the primary community center for this particularly stressed neighborhood within East St. Louis. Visit at
www.cacesl.org.
According to Rev. Chet Cantrell, Executive Director, the Impact Partnership has helped the center to:
- Learn what it takes to becomes a full-fledged organization, with infrastructure and systems in place to support the mission;
- Gain fiscal and organization sustainability; and
- Track achievements and the impact the program has on the 4,000 children served each year, and learn from the results.
Citizens for Missouri’s Children
Mission: To advocate the rights and well being of all Missouri’s Children, especially those with the greatest need.
Executive Director: Scott Gee
Need in the Community: Children do not vote, but their lives are profoundly impacted by public policy within a state and community. Missouri’s children, as evidenced in the data collected by organizations such as Citizens for Missouri’s Children, need advocates to speak out for their interests by educating the public about issues affecting children
Strategy: Through research, analysis and public education, Citizens for Missouri’s Children advocates for the well-being of the children of Missouri by promoting the development of good public policy. Since 1983, Citizens for Missouri’s Children has worked to improve systems, policies, programs and funding in areas impacting children, including foster care, adoption, child abuse, family preservation, healthcare, dental care, economic well-being, child care, and education. Visit at
www.mokids.org.
Key Accomlishments have been to:
- Upgrade office space and establish a more prominent profile in the community;
- Complete a strategic plan that outlines clear policy goals and a sustainable business model; and
- Provide ongoing staff development and coaching to strengthen core staff.
Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition
Mission: Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition is a non-profit agency that strives to create permanency in every foster child’s life by recruiting and supporting foster/adoptive homes in the St. Louis metropolitan community.
Chief Executive Officer: Melanie Scheetz
Need in the Community: Nearly 1,000 children in St. Louis area are waiting for foster/adoptive homes.
Strategy: The Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition actively recruits loving foster and adoptive families for the abused, neglected, and abandoned children of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. They host support groups and offer monthly educational workshops for foster and adoptive parents, many of whom face similar challenges with the child welfare system and with parenting hurt children. They connect foster/adoptive parents with community resources and help them navigate their way through the child welfare system. Visit at
www.foster-adopt.org
Melanie Scheetz, Executive Director, credits the Impact Partnership for helping Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition to:
- Build a stronger and more engaged Board that will sustain the agency;
- Expand the agency's programs to serve more children and families; and
- Diversify the agency's funding streams to include new special events revenue.
Neighborhood Houses
Mission:Neighborhood Houses is a neighborhood-centered, faith-based organization that supports St. Louis families by helping children to become hopeful, healthy and self-sufficient members of the community.
Chief Executive Officer: Open
Need in the Community: Every day in St. Louis thousands of children face tough issues: poverty, hunger, limited access to healthcare services, educational deficits, and neighborhood violence.
Strategy: Since 1913, Neighborhood Houses has worked in the City of St. Louis to address the issues named above and has remained committed to the children and families of the neighborhoods in which they are located. Through after-school programs, health screenings and assessments, summer programs, early childhood education, sports, music, art, and other educational outreach programs, Neighborhood Houses provides support to children and families at four different inner-city sites: Caroline Mission, Dignity House, St. James Center and Fellowship Center. Visit at
www.neighborhoodhouses.org
Key Accomplishments have been to:
- Create a platform -including a strong senior administrative leadership team and management capability throughout the organization- to produce quality work;
- Significantly expand -nearly double- some key programming;
- Develop extensive evaluation system and train senior leaders to track and learn from results; and
- Strengthen human resources by standardizing job descriptions, policies, and creating a handbook.
Nurses for Newborns Foundation
Mission: To provide a safety net for families most at-risk; to help prevent infant mortality, child abuse and neglect through home-based programs that provide education, healthcare and positive parenting skills.
Chief Executive Officer: Melinda Ohlemiller
Need in the Community: The Greater St. Louis metropolitan area has an infant mortality rate (among those who are living in poverty) which is close to that of third world countries.
Strategy: Nurses for Newborns provides outreach by registered nurses to economically stressed pregnant women and new mothers. Their “Bright Futures” program helps pregnant women access prenatal care and aim for a healthy pregnancy, while teaching infant care and building parenting skills. Their “Bridge to the Future” program connects hospital and long-term community services for medically fragile infants. “Safe Beginnings” serves mentally retarded or developmentally disabled, mentally ill, or physically challenged pregnant women or new mothers, and their “Teen Parent” program serves first-time mothers under the age of 19. Visit at
www.nfnf.org.
Sharon Rohrbach, CEO, says that the Impact Partnership has helped Nurses for Newborns to:
- Cultivate a well trained, justly compensated staff and infrastructure that can support future growth;
- Create policies/procedures and protocols that are standardized between Missouri and Tennessee offices;
- Develop a succession plan for executive leadership; and
- Promote the results of Nurses for Newborns Foundation impact on a national level.
Saint Louis Crisis Nursery
Mission: The Saint Louis Crisis Nursery is committed to the prevention of child abuse and neglect and provides emergency intervention, respite care and support to families in crisis through:
- Short-term care for young children in a safe and nurturing environment
- Helping families resolve crisis
- Follow-up, ongoing support and education to families
- Community outreach and awareness
- Advocacy for children and families.
Executive Director: DiAnne Mueller
Need in the Community: Families in crisis occasionally need emergency intervention, respite care, or other support, and when this is not available, children are at heightened risk for abuse and/or neglect. Many families find themselves facing such crises due to homelessness, when alcohol or drug abuse are factors, or when economic stressors or other conditions become overwhelming.
Strategy: The Saint Louis Crisis Nursery provides 24-hour, 7-day a week support to the community in three metro area locations. The Crisis Nursery serves over 3,000 children per year (ages birth to 10) through short-term care, medical evaluation, and therapeutic interventions. Critical components to the programming are the follow-up, on-going support, and education that is provided to the families in crisis, both on-site and through home visits by staff of the Crisis Nursery. Visit at
www.crisisnurserykids.com.
According to DiAnne Mueller, Executive Director, participating in the Impact Partnership has helped the Nursery:
- Network all four Crisis Nurseries and two outreach centers so that staff can communticate in "real time" about families;
- Implement a new client data base system that will improve intake and tracking families;
- Strengthen fund development and ability to attract major donors; and
- Open the St. Charles Crisis West Nursery and Outreach Center.
Voices for Children
Mission:To speak for the best interests of abused and neglected children. We promote quality volunteer representation for children so that they may have the safe, permanent, nurturing home all children need and deserve.
Executive Director: Jan Huneke
Need in the Community:There are nearly 3,000 children in foster care in the City of St. Louis today. (580,000 children are in foster care across the United States.) Many need an advocate to speak up for them and help them move through the court system, out of foster care and into safe, permanent homes as quickly and compassionately as possible.
Strategy:Voices for Children trains and monitors volunteers to speak on behalf of abused and neglected children who have entered the child welfare system in St. Louis City and are currently in foster care. These court-appointed special advocates serve as eyes and ears for the Family Court Judge, by investigating and monitoring the children’s circumstances. Over 260 child welfare advocates, serving over 1200 children, currently dedicate their efforts to improve life for children in St. Louis. Voices for Children’s goal is to train enough volunteers by 2006 to assist every child entering foster care, in order to help the children have a positive future and a chance to reach their full potential. Visit @
www.voicesforchildrenstl.org.
Notable Success include the following:
- Restructed staff-volunteer model to include Child Advocacy Specialists who focus on particularly difficult cases;
- Created "Vision for Success," a new outcome measurement system; and
- Upgraded the Administrative Director position which has led to improving the budgeting, fiscal management, human resources, and planning systems.