Integrated Behavioral Health Program
Organization / Location: St. Elizabeth’s Health Center, Tucson, Ariz.
Contact: Sister Michelle Humke, CSJ, Director, Behavioral Health Services, 520.628.7698
Health department offers integrated behavioral services to patients who are registered at St. Elizabeth’s Health Center. The goal of the program is to identify and treat the psychological, behavioral, emotional, cognitive and social factors important to the prevention, treatment and management of physical health problems. It focuses on the stresses, expectations, lifestyles and perceptions that are associated with underlying medical conditions and provides psycho-educational services, individual, family, couple and group counseling services, and medication services to address these issues. Previously, St. Elizabeth’s Health Center patients who were referred to outside agencies for continued treatment were reluctant or unwilling to go someplace else and did not follow through on their treatment. The integrated behavioral health program allows these patients who otherwise would not receive further treatment to continue at a facility with which they are familiar.
Bay Area Crisis Nursery
Organization / Location: Concord, Calif.
Contact: Sandy Hathaway, Development Manager, 925.685.6633
Bay Area Crisis Nursery (BACN) stops abuse and neglect of young children before it starts by providing a safe place for parents to voluntarily admit their children when the parents temporarily can’t cope due to stress or crisis. As the only crisis nursery in the San Francisco Bay area, BACN provides 24-hour residential care in a warm, safe, loving, home-like environment for children birth through 11 years of age. Parents obtain case management, develop an action plan to resolve the crisis or alleviate the stress, and receive referrals to other services. A Respite Program is available for children birth through age five, if needed, following the crisis. Knowing their children are safe and having the time to focus on solving the problem, parents can make more effective use of other services to regain stability.
Languille Emergency Shelter and Outreach
Organization / Location: Good Shepherd Center for Homeless Women and Children, Catholic Charities, Los Angeles, Calif.
Contact: Cathy Seward, Director of Development, 213.235.1965
Started as an emergency shelter and drop-in center for homeless women, the Good Shepherd Center has grown into a total of five homes – one emergency shelter, three transitional residences that focus on helping residents achieve independence through core supportive services such as shelter, case management, job development and re-housing assistance, and a semi-permanent affordable housing facility for disabled mothers and their minor children. The Languille Emergency Shelter provides homeless women a safe refuge from the street or from the loss of a foreclosed home, and provides clothing, toiletries and hot meals at no cost. It is designed to be a rapid six-week program to empower the women to obtain the resources needed to become self-sufficient. With the support of the staff and volunteers, the women are expected to create a resume, interview for jobs and formulate a personal plan for housing and finances within six weeks. There also is a mobile outreach program that provides service to women in neighborhoods surrounding the Los Angeles area three times a week, distributing food, water, coffee, toiletries, blankets, clothing and offers of emergency shelter. Homeless women who are unsheltered are encouraged to visit the shelter to use the drop-in services, which include a hot lunch, laundry services, showers, toiletries and clothing.
The Community Garden Project
Organization / Location: The Sullivan Center, Atlanta, Ga.
Contact: Veronica Watson, Garden Manager, Community Liaison, 404.753.0531 (ext. 18)
The Sullivan Center helps people remain self-sufficient by providing help in a dignified manner to families and individuals facing a stability crisis. The Center empowers people to help themselves through financial assistance and planning, nutrition classes, and employment counseling. Its primary goals are the prevention of homelessness, poverty and economic inequality, and the education of individuals to give them the skills needed to gain and retain employment to become self-sufficient. It inspires them to give back to the community by sharing their new skills and offering community service to others. In addition to a food pantry, the Center has had a neighborhood garden for seven years, which provides the community with fresh, nutritious food, and teaches healthy nutrition to those who receive food. The gardeners grow food for their own use, to sell at farmer’s markets for extra income and to donate to the Center.
Spiritual Retreats Ending Homelessness
Organization / Location: The Ignatian Spiritually Project
Contact: Thomas Drexler, Executive Director, 773.465.8699
The Ignatian Spirituality Project (ISP) provides spiritual formation to those who are homeless and living in shelters or on the street. It helps these individuals confront obstacles in their transition out of homelessness and into recovery. Spirituality and spiritual retreats are effective and important resources in laying a fundamental foundation of hope, which can lead to further and long lasting transformation in the lives of these people. The ISP uses the rich tradition of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola and a 12-step recovery program to engage the spiritual life of the participants and help them out of homelessness.
High School Alternative for Drop Outs
Organization / Location: Vincent Gray Academy, East St. Louis, Ill.
Contact: Father Dan Kearns, CM, Principal, 618.875.7880
Vincent Gray provides alternative education for students who have been deemed unable to be educated or have otherwise been unsuccessful in the traditional education system. This program offers basic academic courses that lead to a diploma recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education, and is designed to prepare the student for employment and post-secondary education. Vincent Gray Academy does not charge tuition or fees. Because research indicates that high school dropouts are three-and-a-half times more likely than graduates to be arrested and eight times more likely to be incarcerated, this education program helps graduates prepare for a productive future.
Scholarship Fund
Organization/Location: Christ in the Wilderness Hermitage Retreat Center, Stockton, Ill.
Contact: Julia Marie Bathon, OSF, Executive Director, 815.947.2476
The Christ in the Wilderness Hermitage Retreat Center provides an environment that is conducive to silence, prayer and reflection. It enables participants, who come from various backgrounds, to experience movement toward a deeper awareness of self, creation and the holy. The scholarship fund will enable individuals who lack the financial resources to experience the solitude and reflection and help heal their bodies, minds and spirits as they struggle with difficult times they may be experiencing.
Project Access
Organization / Location: St. Joseph Hospital, Kokomo, Ind.
Contact: Sr. Katherine Kelly, DC, Vice President, Mission Integration, 765.456.5516
Project Access provides comprehensive healthcare services to meet the medical needs of uninsured residents of Howard County, Ind. Patients who meet income requirements are assigned a primary care clinic or physician that they may visit at no cost. If required, treatment by a physician specialist or hospitalization also is provided. Physician-prescribed labs, imaging and other ancillary services are available for a $25 co-payment.
Go & Make Disciples, Advanced Leadership
Organization / Location: Instituto Cultural de Liderazgo en el Medio Oeste (Midwest Hispanic Leadership Institute)
Contact: Tom Florek, SJ, Director, 574.631.2633
Go & Make Disciples is a two-year, advanced leadership program offered at Notre Dame. It offers high quality, professional formation to Midwest Hispanic/Latino leaders who otherwise would not have access to a quality program. It includes attendance at courses and follow-up seminars, course readings, related projects and leadership practicum. This crucial education will improve the future of the Latino community.
Representative Payee Services Program
Organization / Location: Sisters of Saint Joseph Dear Neighbor Ministries
Contact: Patrick O’Donnell, Director, Mission Advancement, 316.689.4061
The Sisters of Saint Joseph Dear Neighbor Ministries helps to transform the lives of those who are poor, abused and neglected in the community. It provides transitional housing, support services and direct assistance to help people master the skills needed to become self-sufficient. The representative payee services program helps individuals who cannot manages their own financial affairs. It helps them prioritize their spending to ensure that necessary expenses are met when Social Security disability checks are received. This responsible spending allows these individuals to meet their basic needs and decreases their dependence on other resources.
Recovering Health in a Recovering City
Organization / Location: People Program, New Orleans, La.
Contact: LaVerne Kappel, Executive Director, 504.284.7678
Recovering Health in a Recovering City offers an opportunity for persons 50 years and older to join together to share knowledge, friendship, arts, crafts and healthy lifestyles. It offers physical, creative, social and intellectual activities which contribute to the self-esteem and overall welfare of its participants. Integrating these components into a holistic approach to wellness and leading behavioral changes enhances the quality of life during the aging process. Scholarships are available to individuals who cannot afford the nominal $125 membership fee.
Music Teacher Salary
Organization / Location: St. Rita Catholic Central School, New Orleans, La.
Contact: Sr. Mary Ellen Seo, Resource Teacher, 504.862.5693
St. Rita Catholic Central, an inner-city school in New Orleans, had an outstanding vocal music program and Gospel choir prior to Hurricane Katrina. Since the storm, funds have not been available for the program and the teacher was displaced due to damage to her home. The teacher is now able to return to New Orleans and the school hopes to re-establish its music program. The school is dedicated to low-income families who desire a spiritually centered school. The arts, music in particular, are essential to the lives and culture of the African American students and will help in the healing process of those who suffered great loss from Katrina.
Bayley Program
Organization / Location: Elizabeth Ann Seton High School, Bladensburg, Md.
Contact: Mr. Terry O’Meara, Assistant Director of Advancement, 301.864.4532 ext. 7172
Elizabeth Ann Seton High School provides a challenging college preparatory program for young women while stressing Catholic values, academic excellence and service to those in need. The Bayley Program employs a learning specialist to help students with minor learning disabilities, organizational weaknesses or minor language and math deficiencies. This program allows the school to accept students who could not be academically successful without some special assistance.
DePaul Dental Program
Organization / Location: Seton Center, Inc., Emmitsburg, Md.
Contact: Sister Ellen Eisenberger, Director, 301.447.6102
Seton Center assists low income families by offering supportive human services including emergency financial assistance, special educational programs, dental services, a thrift shop, seasonal projects and home visits. It serves approximately 5,500 persons per year, with 9,000 additional visits annually to the Thrift Shop. The DePaul Dental Program provides dental services to low-income adults by partnering with area dentists and oral surgeons who provide their services at discounted rates. The program helps its clients to be healthier, to present a better appearance and to have a better chance to obtain employment when they present themselves to prospective employers. Clients are asked to pay a nominal fee at their initial visit, which respects their dignity and independence.
Living a Healthy Lifestyle
Organization / Location: St. Luke North End Women’s Life Center, Flint, Mich.
Contact: Sister Judith Blake, CSJ, Co-Director, 810.239.8710
St. Luke North End Women’s Life Center assists single-parent moms and grandmothers who are raising grandchildren to become self-sufficient providers for the families through a three-year program of life change, personal growth and develop opportunities, self-esteem building, basic life and employment skills, and educational assistance. The Living a Healthy Lifestyle program focuses on living with and managing chronic conditions, including education regarding prescription drug use. Classes in CPR, nutrition, exercise and blood pressure monitoring are part of the program.
Parent-Infant Partner Program
Organization / Location: Infant Mortality Program, Highland Park, Mich.
Contact: Mary Ann McCourt, Development Officer, 313.868.8420
The Infant Mortality Program provides comprehensive services that help reduce health risk factors and disparities to at-risk pregnant women, infants, children and their families. It provides access to healthcare, literacy education and positive parenting skills. The Parent Infant Partner Program will offer pre-conception healthcare by providing a health screening to women who have experienced an infant death, a premature or low birth weight infant, or other negative birth outcomes. The pre-conception care will include a risk assessment, education and counseling, medical and psychosocial interventions for smoking cessation, weight management and mental health counseling.
Borgess Women’s Heart Program
Organization / Location: Borgess Health, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Contact: Cyndi Kochevar, Coordinator, 269.321.7088
The Borgess Women’s Heart Program is a comprehensive cardiovascular disease risk assessment, education and support program for women age 30 and older that will address the rising rates of cardiovascular disease, myocardial infarction and sudden cardiac death in women, as well as gender inequities in heart assessments and preventive care. This program is 100 percent prevention focused using screenings, education and lifestyle improvement counseling, and support.
Family Mediated Services
Organization / Location: Catholic Comprehensive Services for Children – Marygrove, Florissant, Mo.
Contact: Dan O’Keefe, Public Relations/Grant Writer, 314.830.6270
Child Center – Marygrove is a residential treatment facility that serves the needs of economically disadvantaged children who have been subjected to some form of abuse, as well as being subjected to dysfunctional family-related issues and/or life experiences. It provides individual, group, specialized group and family therapy programs and ensures medical care and educational placement. The Family Mediated Services program provides in-home therapeutic services through a certified therapist who visits the home of the offender and provides individual counseling as a means to stabilize and eliminate future criminal acts by the individual. The counseling consists of processing historical individual and family-related issues, examining mental health issues and addressing behavioral issues. The coursework includes educationally based and or topic-specific workbook assignments, as well as participation in activities that support the workbook assignments.
Promoting Healthy Lives and Healthy Living
Organization / Location: Seton Center, Kansas City, Mo.
Contact: Sister Loretto Marie Colwell, Executive Director, 816.231.3955 ext. 102
Seton Center helps to meet the needs of the neighborhood residents it serves through a food pantry; a thrift store; rent, mortgage and utilities assistance; a socialization program for senior adults; a public charter high school for at-risk students and a safety net for dental services. Promoting Healthy Lives and Healthy Living is a significant advancement in the types of life skills education provided to the high school students. It will provide them with skills to build healthy and balanced lives, including financial tools, nutrition, basic health information, parenting, wellness and self-esteem.
Quality, Safety and Equality of Care for Seniors
Organization / Location: Cardinal Ritter Senior Services, St. Louis, Mo.
Contact: Sister Suzanne Wesley, CSJ, 314.961.8000 ext 275
Cardinal Ritter Senior Services provides direct services to senior adults, especially those who are frail and impoverished. It provides protection and stability through quality residential, healthcare and supportive social services. St. Elizabeth Hall is an assisted living facility that encourages independence to senior adults with mental illness by offering essential supportive services. It offers 24-hour supervision and security, three nutritious meals daily, medication storage and distribution, personal care assistance, laundry, housekeeping, transportation for activities and an emergency call system. The staff assists senior residents to achieve positive changes in skills, attitudes, behaviors and life condition. When residents achieve the stability of assisted living and find that their basic needs for housing, food and safety are met, they are able to build personal independence and recover individual dignity that may have eroded over time.
Home Repair/Utility Assistance
Organization / Location: Carondelet Community Betterment Federation, Inc., St. Louis, Mo.
Contact: Sister Mary Ann Nestel, CSJ, Executive Director, 314.752.6339
The Carondelet Community Betterment Federation addresses the needs and problems of the community it serves. The home repair program serves seniors by helping with minor home repairs and low-income home owners under the age of 55 with larger repairs. The utility assistance program assists individuals and families who have received disconnection notices on their utilities by paying part of the amount needed to avoid disconnection of services. These clients have low incomes, many with social security or disability payments as their only source of income. The need for home repair and the associated costs can cause much stress for homeowners. This program helps to lessen the stress by helping younger home owners to afford repairs and by performing repairs for seniors that they can no longer do themselves, allowing them to remain in the homes that they can no longer maintain themselves.
Integrative Mind/Body Program for Adult Torture Survivors
Organization / Location: Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma, St. Louis, Mo.
Contact: Kristin Bulin, Executive Director, 314.541.4610
St. Louis has become a new home for many refugees fleeing war-torn countries where torture has been known to take place. Current literature on trauma reflects that unresolved trauma becomes embedded in nerve patterns in the brain that involve both emotional and physical memory. This means that a person with severe trauma has persistent recall of the trauma of the event, the emotions experience the same terror as in the original trauma and the body reacts as if under chronic threat. This program would give clients access to appropriate body-based therapies such as yoga and massage, integrated with psychotherapies, to diminish persistent trauma symptoms.
English Tutoring Project
Organization / Location: St. Louis Area Women Religious Collaborative Ministries, St. Louis, Mo.
Contact: Sister Rosemary Russell, CPPS, Administrator, 314.265.3683
The English Tutoring Projects was founded in 1998 to address an unmet educational need in the city of St. Louis, Mo. A study revealed that the immigrant and refugee children in Catholic elementary schools (grades K-8) in the south city area of St. Louis, where most immigrant families settle upon arrival, were not being well served. Families and schools did not have the resources to provide the needed assistance in English language acquisition for these children, and they were struggling to learn in English-speaking classrooms. These services are offered at no cost to the schools or families. This program helps these children to learn English skills and develop the self-confidence needed to succeed in their classrooms. It also helps to prevent students from dropping out of high school and to integrate and success as they develop their full potential and become active, contributing members of society in the future.
St. Patrick Center Healthcare Wing
Organization / Location: St. Patrick Center, St. Louis, Mo.
Contact: Jan Rasmussen, Chief Development Officer, 314.802.0683
In collaboration with health partners in the St. Louis area, St. Patrick Center created a healthcare wing in which services that had been located in several different sites throughout the building are now housed in one location. Clients receive preventive care as well as care for existing conditions in this healthcare wing, which includes a reception area, four exam rooms, offices for a nurse practitioner and a physician, a file room, a storage area for medications and supplies, a dental office and chiropractic facilities.
Family Unification Immigration Benefits
Organization / Location: Catholic Charities Gallup, Inc., serving New Mexico and Arizona, Gallup, N.M.
Contact: Sister Janet Cashman, SCL, Coordinator of Immigration Services, 505.728.6389
Catholic Charities Gallup, Inc., provides services to the Native American, Mexican/Latino and other populations in northwest New Mexico and Northeast Arizona. These services include emergency services, alcohol and drug prevention programs, summer day camp, parenting programs, residential programs for parenting and pregnant teens, transitional housing and food programs. Legal assistance is provided for a small fee to those who qualify for family unification immigration benefits. Many of the immigrants served have left their homelands to escape extreme poverty and, at times, violence. Their hope is to find work in the U.S. that will permit them to live in the simplest manner, while sending money to help their families back home. Applications for legal permanent residency and citizenship are costly. This program allows immigrants access to the assistance they need without costly lawyer fees.
Helping Our Parents to be Educators (HOPE) Project
Organization / Location: Our Lady of Lourdes Memorial Hospital, Binghamton, N.Y.
Contact: Bette J. Gifford, Director, Youth Services, 607.584.4500
Youth Services at Our Lady of Lourdes Memorial Hospital serves children and families with low income each year through a variety of services, including an oral health clinic, mental health counseling, a home visiting program for parents of young children, behavioral health services to children coming into the juvenile justice system, family strengthening programs and drug prevention programs in schools in the community. The HOPE Project is a federally funded research project that consists of a parent-developed and parent-led curriculum designed to increase parental involvement in abstinence education and a Parent Forum that governs and implements project activities. The Parent Forum consists of parents or parent-figures of teens who facilitate the peer education model to parents of adolescents. These sessions give parents an opportunity to identify their values and learn skills that will make them feel confident in communicating prevention messages to their children. It also provides local and statewide community education to service providers to heighten awareness of the importance of parents in teen pregnancy prevention and the effectiveness of abstinence education.
Rensselaer Cares Prescription Assistance Program
Organization / Location: Seton Health, Troy, N.Y.
Contact: Pamela Rehak, Vice President, Planning and Communication, 518.268.5517
The Rensselaer Cares Prescription Assistance Program (RCPAP) serves underinsured and uninsured Rensselaer County. It was established in 2007 by a Troy-based 100 percent access coalition initiated by Seton Health that includes area healthcare providers. The coalition’s priority is access to prescription medications because of concerns among the providers that giving medical care was of limited value if the prescribed medication regimen was not followed. RCPAP assists individuals with the completion of applications for assistance from pharmaceutical companies that have programs to make their drugs available at little or no cost to eligible recipients. The program is open to anyone without prescription coverage who is affiliated with one of the coalition providers.
Child Safety Basics for Teen Parents
Organization / Location: Seton Family of Hospitals/Dell Children’s Medical Center, Austin, Texas
Contact: Cyndy Perkins, Senior Director of Development, 512.324.0107
Because their daily challenges correlate strongly with risk factors for childhood injuries, disabilities and death, teen parents often unintentionally put their young children in the path of danger. They frequently don’t realize that most injuries are preventable, but their life situations, which commonly include poverty, lack of family and social support, lack of information about safe practices, domestic conflict, anxiety and the inexperience of their youth, combined with early and quite possibly single parenthood, create a much greater injury potential for their children. In collaboration with the Austin Independent School District, teen parents are given child safety information and equipment to increase their child safety knowledge and parenting confidence and to increase their ability to keep their own children safe.
Children’s Summer Day Treatment Program
Organization / Location: Lourdes Health Network/Lourdes Counseling Center, Pasco, Wash.
Contact: Erin Tomlinson, Foundation Specialist, 509.543.2415
This program provides a summertime therapeutic/recreational experience for children and adolescents who have mild and severe disabilities due to behavioral, emotional and mild cognitive impairments. These children are able to increase their level of function through academic, recreational, vocational and social activities in the community. These services are provided at schools during the regular school year, but the summertime program fills a gap left from June to August, increasing the ability of these children to progress.
Children of the Coalfields
Organization / Location: Affirming, Believing, Learning and Empowering Families (ABLE), Inc., Kermit, W.Va.
Contact: Sister Janet M. Peterworth, Director, 304.393.3987
ABLE Families addresses the needs of low-income families in the coalfields of rural West Virginia and provides support as they confront the systemic causes of poverty and make positive changes in their lives. ABLE Families provides programs in the areas of literacy, nutrition, parenting, leadership and advocacy for children. These programs are free of charge and offer a safe place with caring adults to children who often are isolated, have low self-esteem, lack well-developed social skills, and are both physically and spiritually hungry.
Rural Outreach and Immigration Services
Organization / Location: Rural Outreach and Immigration Services, Martinsburg, W.Va.
Contact: Sister Mary Ann Azar, DC, Outreach Worker, 304.267.3071
Rural Outreach and Immigration Services meets the needs of the immigrant population in the Martinsburg area of West Virginia. It provides basic immigration information, networking and referral services to immigrants, primarily Hispanic. The services include referrals to health clinics and medical practitioners, help with negotiating the maze of medical bills, legal referrals, liaison with the local parish school and other schools, assistance with obtaining food stamps and other benefits, and links with many other area agencies. By increasing access to these services, the individuals are able to improve their quality of life and integration into society in the United States.
Huiras Family Ozaukee Community Health Clinic
Organization / Location: Columbia St. Mary’s, Milwaukee, Wis.
Contact: Sharon Streff, R.N., Director, 262.243.7584
Huiras Family Ozaukee Community Health Clinic (Huiras Clinic) addresses the health and financial risks that accompany dramatically increasing job losses and the resulting lack of health insurance in Ozaukee County. Previously the health clinic operated as a physician-led model; however, changing the approach to emphasize a nurse practitioner model overseen by a fully qualified medical director will allow more cost-effective, quality care to be delivered to more patients.
