FORKIDS INC
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Mission Statement
The ForKids team has been helping families overcome the challenges of poverty and unstable housing since 1988 and remains committed to our mission of breaking the cycle of homelessness and poverty for families and children. Each year, the team promotes positive change in the lives of over four hundred families recovering from crisis, providing housing solutions aligned with a system of holistic support services that lead to lifelong self-sufficiency. Dedicated to building pathways out of poverty, the ForKids team addresses the link between housing instability and income disparity and works to ensure families have access to affordable housing and economic opportunity. ForKids has established a strategic goal of family well-being and employs deliberate approaches to deliver evidence-based, trauma-informed services to ensure long-term positive outcomes. Collaborative working partnerships with community providers reduce barriers and ensure connection to resources. To promote generational stability, the team combines academic assistance with enrichment activities for school-age children to close achievement gaps and provide a foundation for vocational success. Taking a strengths-based approach, the ForKids team emphasizes that clients are collaborators in their housing stability plan and experts on their own lives. Through individualized, client-focused services, the ForKids team fosters self-advocacy and leads the way to security. In addition to family well-being, the 2022 Strategic Plan: Pathways Out of Poverty includes goals toward building communities that support stable, healthy and thriving families, continuing our work in economic mobility, promoting educational achievement for children, ensuring housing stability and achieving operational excellence. To accomplish these goals, ForKids will increase opportunities for families to access culturally responsive and individualized services, expand collaborative working partnerships with community providers to reduce barriers and ensure connection to resources, extend engagement periods and measure goals that indicate long-term success. Finally, as part of our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, ForKids will implement individual, community and systems-level strategies to dismantle systemic racism and inequity.
About This Cause
As the first step toward stability, the Housing Crisis Hotline operates in 14 cities and counties in southeastern Virginia, answering over 50,000 calls annually. Always searching for a resolution that will keep individuals and families safe, the Hotline team helps callers consider creative options to avert their crisis. When no diversion option is readily available, the team refers callers to over 400 regional community resources. Hotline staff also educates callers on landlord/tenant rights and responsibilities and provides resources in the case of an impending eviction. To meet the vital need for safety, ForKids provides emergency shelter for families with children. The Regional Emergency Shelter programs combine housing and support services to reduce or eliminate barriers and help families from all over Southeastern Virginia locate permanent housing as quickly as possible. At Sokol Place in Chesapeake, families stay in comfortable rooms and enjoy nutritious meals made from scratch with fruits and vegetables grown in the rooftop garden. In neighboring cities like Suffolk, shelter is provided through hotel vouchers for which ForKids pays a weekly rate. Longer-term housing stabilization programs provide financial assistance with rent and other housing-related needs combined with a support system as families build a pathway out of poverty. ForKids works with families to leverage rental subsidies to maximize opportunities for education or training. The financial assistance is critical as it allows families to pay off past debt, establish savings and establish realistic goals for the future. Families develop a plan that includes goals around employment, education and training, physical and mental health, transportation and childcare, and leads to self-sufficiency. The ForKids economic mobility team continues to assist more families beyond the immediate need for income. Through established partnerships with local higher education and training institutions, the team connects adults with programs that teach the competencies to enter a skilled trade field within a short timeframe. Adopting a career mentor framework, one-on-one coaching encourages parents to overcome challenges to managing household responsibilities while successfully completing coursework. To eliminate any barriers to participation, ForKids offers assistance with childcare, transportation and class materials. The economic mobility team partners with prospective employers to identify opportunities for employment that align with client strengths and community need. Since 2019, ForKids has partnered with United Way of Southampton Roads and Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia to implement Aspire and Strive, the first programs of their kind in this region. Demonstrating that families have innate strengths that can be capitalized on with the right support and linkages, Mobility Mentors employ a coaching method and engage community organizations to provide education, employment and other resources that women with children can access to increase their skill level and achieve economic independence. Education is key to building pathways out of poverty. The Children’s Education team at ForKids strengthens academic achievement while building the social emotional skills children need to thrive. Originally a volunteer program started in 2005 to provide homework help to ten children once a week, children’s education at ForKids has expanded to serve over 400 students from three public school districts, advocating for students and their families. Afterschool programs operate five evenings per week, providing homework help, project based learning, enrichment, social emotional skill building, mentorship and youth development activities.