As the Board Chair for Center of Hope Family Services, I am proud to send you our latest update. We are grateful for your ongoing support in the work we do. All of us--the Board, our leadership, the staff, and the many people who support us--are dedicated to contributing our diverse skills to make the community stronger.
This month, I'd like to share three updates with you. Together they provide the flavor of where we are when we begin our 26th year.
Focus: Staff Excellence
Beginning in 2023, we want you to get to know the people at Center of Hope. Any successful organization is driven by people, and in this case, Center of Hope is a machine driven by the energy and skills of professionals doing what they do best.
Rodger Jamison is leading our ELEVATE program at Robinson Elementary. Rodger brings a broad set of experiences to our students, including in the private sector managing the broad logistics involved with the opening of new retail locations. He has worked at the Springfield schools and in healthcare, as well. He started with the Center of Hope at the Family Navigator program at the Juvenile Court.
He is leading a site where we have made a tremendous impact. With the support of the community, we helped improve Robinson--starting with the students and in the end helping build a stronger community.
Rodger knows how important data and results are to the ELEVATE Model. "We do a data-driven individualized plan for each student every week. When students and their families see results, it gives them confidence and just makes the next steps easier," he said.
He's as optimistic as all of us about the future. "ELEVATE will help communities," he says. "And it will happen not just here but far and wide."
Shift to Convenor and Collaborator
As Rodger notes, we are committed to impacting as many people as possible with our models. As program operators, however, there are challenges to making a larger impact, including finding, retaining and training staff to serve at more and more sites.
Operationally, the board and our leadership have been thinking hard about this issue. The chart below captures our sustainability plan.
I'd like to draw your attention to Box #3 in particular, because it represents a paradigm shift for Center of Hope. Over time, our vision is to increase our impact by identifying key organizations that can help us reach those who are difficult to reach and then providing them the model, the training, and the technical assistance to implement ELEVATE! in their community.
Donor Impact
Lastly, I'm proud to share an article that ran on the front page of The Blade. The story is about Tracee Perryman, our CEO and one of the founders of Center of Hope. I hope you will take the opportunity to read it. I was happy to be interviewed because leadership is so important to what we do.
Leadership cannot do it alone, however. Not one word of that story exists without the support of our donors and community. We want you to know that we are grateful and we are committed to continuing to engage you as we expand our impact to help families survive and thrive.
Fletcher Word,
Board Chair
Center of Hope Family Services
