Our Partnership with United Way to End the Cycle of Poverty

YWCA Clark County is pleased to announce that it has been chosen as one of 30 select organizations to participate in United Way of the Columbia-Willamette’s new Community Strengthening collaborative cohort designed to improve outcomes for low-income children and their families, and ultimately break the cycle of childhood poverty in the four-county (Clackamas, Clark, Multnomah and Washington) region.

 The collaborative cohort, which is based on the “collective impact” approach, is part of United Way of the Columbia-Willamette’s new strategic direction to leverage the expertise, resources, and effort of multiple organizations across the region in working together toward one common goal: breaking the cycle of childhood poverty.

 United Way’s Community Strengthening cohort is comprised of 30 emerging and established non-profits serving low income and culturally specific communities across the metropolitan area. The cohort will work together for a period of three years (July 2014 through June 2017) to create and participate in learning communities designed to share experiences, exchange data and information, and build collective knowledge around new and promising practices to improve outcomes for low-income families and their children. Each member of the Community Strengthening cohort will be awarded up to $50,000 per year, to complete this critical work. (*Funding to YWCA Clark County and the other non-profits in the cohort is contingent on the funding United Way receives as an organization to its Breaking the Cycle fund.)

 “We are pleased to participate in United Way’s Community Strengthening cohort because it will not only help ensure the sustainability of our programs, but it will ensure a concerted effort to integrate best practices in effectively addressing the root causes of poverty.,” said YWCA’s Director of Programs, Natalie Wood. “We hope to work collaboratively to better identify how poverty is intertwined with the prevention and crisis intervention services we provide, assess our strengths and growth areas to determine what organizational changes we can make to directly address the root causes of poverty more effectively, and ultimately adopt new practices that allow us to have an even greater impact in the community.”

 Each non-profit organization participating in United Way of the Columbia-Willamette’s Community Strengthening cohort has agreed to share their results through a common measurement framework, to work together on critical problems and innovations in the field, and to build a common knowledge base about collective impact on childhood poverty in our region.

 “We are ecstatic to be collaborating with the outstanding organizations selected to be a part of our Community Strengthening cohort on breaking the cycle of childhood poverty. The issue of poverty is incredibly complex, with multiple facets; it’s a far greater issue than any one organization can resolve alone,” said Keith Thomajan, CEO of United Way of the Columbia-Willamette. “In utilizing the collective impact model, we are confident we can amplify and accelerate the impact we are making in our community specific to student success, family stability, and connected communities to give every child, regardless of their socioeconomic status, a fair chance at success. Quite simply, we are better together.”

The Collective Impact Model 

 The collective impact model, as articulated by the non-profit consulting group Foundation Strategy Group (FSG), is a model of work that brings people together, in a structured way, to achieve social change. There are five conditions** of “collective impact” that lead to meaningful results:

1. A common agenda: All participants have a shared vision for change including a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed upon actions.

2. Shared Measurement: Collecting data and measuring results consistently across all participants ensures efforts remain aligned and participants hold each other accountable.

3. Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Participant activities must be differentiated while still being coordinated through a mutually reinforcing plan of action.

4. Continuous Communication: Consistent and open communication is needed across the many players to build trust, assure mutual objectives, and appreciate common motivation.

5. Backbone Organization: Creating and managing collective impact requires a separate organization(s) with staff and a specific set of skills to serve as the backbone for the entire initiative and coordinate participating organizations and agencies (The backbone organization for the Community Strengthening strategy is United Way of the Columbia-Willamette.)

 **Source: Foundation Strategy Group (FSG) http://www.fsg.org/OurApproach/CollectiveImpact.aspx 

 To learn more about United Way’s Community Strengthening strategy and the other organizations involved in the cohort, please visit http://www.unitedway-pdx.org/community-strengthening-investments

DVSA Task Force: Past, Present, and Future

By Sharon Svec

The Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Task Force was started in 1992 as a way to spread awareness and engage the community in preventing and addressing domestic violence and sexual assault in Clark County.  The group meets four times a year to discuss the needs of domestic violence and sexual assault survivors.  The goal of the task force is to provide a more effective and coordinated community response for survivors through regular communication and joint discussion. Topics and the style of meeting vary.  Topics range from sex offender treatment to human trafficking, and the meeting style may be in the form of a panel discussion, presentation, or workshop.

The most recent meeting held on July 24th was on the impact of family violence on children and youth. Twenty people were in attendance including guests from Children’s Center, Children’s Home Society, Healthy Decisions, and the NorthWest Justice Project. While task force meetings seem to be often attended exclusively by service providers, I found this discussion to be relevant to most anyone.

Panelists included Helen Sullivan from the Children’s Center, Bev Collins from the Independent Living Skills Program of YWCA, and Heather Redman of YWCA’s Clark County CASA Program. Each panelist had valuable insight to share, and there were a few themes that kept recurring throughout the discussion:  how children and youth exposed to violence in the home view themselves, the effects of an ever-changing environment, and how we can support children, youth and families in consideration of these perspectives.

One point that I found especially relevant is that people recognize the lifestyle in which they were raised as being “the norm.” When raised in a violent household, it may seem normal for moms and dads to fight. It may seem appropriate to respond to conflict with aggression or to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. When children are removed from their home because of abuse, neglect or violence, separated from their family and jettisoned into a life of courts, counselors, advocates, foster care and more, life can become very confusing.

Once separated from their family, the child is challenged to accept a new idea of “normal” behavior. They may feel obligated to blend into a new way of living. Plus, they are often asked to share their experiences with a slew of strangers. Coping mechanisms are learned in the home, so when a child, youth, or even parent is facing these challenges, the internal conflict they may feel might actualize in ways that are unhealthy.

Service providers, foster parents, and all community members can better support each other by recognizing and respecting the past experiences of an individual, reminding themselves and those they work with that everyone has different life experiences, and by giving children permission to bear the feelings they have.

Overall, I found the meeting to be very informative. I saw service providers ask questions and instigate valuable discussions. Personally, I was reminded about the varied histories we share, and how to better respect those experiences as we interact with each other. Whether providing direct service or simply interacting with another person in our community, we can all benefit from actively recognizing that context influences our perspectives.

Please join us at the next DV/SA task force meeting on Tuesday, September 23rd from noon to 1:30pm, focused on the court’s response to domestic violence. Guest panelists include Judge Sonya Langsdorf who is the incoming domestic violence judge, a representative from Vancouver’s Office of Public Defense, and a guest from the Domestic Violence Prosecution Center. Panelists will answer questions submitted prior to the meeting. Please submit your questions early to lschacht@ywcaclarkcounty.org and note if you would like your name to remain private.

Breaking Free from a Cycle of Violence

By Sharon Svec

Abuse is never straight-forward. Tools like the power and control wheel show that abusers will often use multiple ways to gain power and control in a relationship. Breaking free from an abuser is a huge step, but at YWCA advocates do all they can to ensure that violence is not tolerated or perpetuated in the future. By providing education and solution-oriented support for survivors of domestic violence, YWCA helps break the cycle of violence.

The Strengthening Families, Ending Violence Project is one such support service offered by the SafeChoice Domestic Violence Program of YWCA Clark County. Through this project, advocates and shelter residents work together using an empowerment-driven model that supports the parent/child bond and ends the cycle of violence. The project is multi-faceted and has been funded through multiple sources including United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, the Looking Out Foundation, and Bank of America.

Three main aspects of the project include the children advocacy program, support groups and housing and transportation assistance. The support groups contain three additional components: DV 101 to help participants better understand the dynamics of domestic violence, a personal enhancement section to provide self-care practice, and a financial empowerment section to help residents transition out of the shelter into a financially stable environment.

Support group facilitators Ashmeeta Kumar, David Chapparo and Katheryn Manning will offer weekly sessions. The support groups will follow a cyclical curriculum based on the 60 day stay offered to shelter residents. Ashmeeta will facilitate DV 101, David will lead personal enhancement and Katheryn will address fiscal empowerment. The team leading the groups will consistently be evaluating the success of their efforts, and will make subtle adjustments to the curriculum to ensure residents are getting the most out of participation.

I recently talked with Katheryn to learn more about the fiscal empowerment section of the support groups, “I’m excited. I think that along with financial empowerment comes a lot of freedom. If you have that component, then it opens all kinds of doors for you. Being able to give financial tools that really work is very valuable.”

Utilizing a curriculum prepared by The Allstate Foundation and the National Network to End Domestic Violence, Katheryn will lead the group through the following five modules: Understanding Financial Abuse, Learning Financial Fundamentals, Mastering Credit Basics, Building Financial Foundations and Creating Budgeting Strategies. Participants will have an opportunity to implement concepts and practice new techniques with supporting activities and worksheets. Because every person’s situation is different, Katheryn believes it’s important to provide individualized support whenever possible.

Katheryn notes that at a time of transition, when everything seems up in the air, education and training like this can feel grounding and empowering. “The financial part is huge. Someone may have lost their job because of the DV. They may have had to leave their home; having to start over. It can be very overwhelming. So here you are in the shelter. You need to find shelter and take care of a lot of other things, and you need to do that in 60 days. So the empowerment part of that is to offer the encouragement that it can be done, to instill that sense of the ripple, and to be there to separate all that all out and make it manageable.”

Empowerment has always been a key part of YWCA’s mission, and by offering something more than temporary housing – by offering an entire program which empowers survivors in a variety of ways, SafeChoice embodies the mission of YWCA and models it for survivors. With funding from Bank of America, SafeChoice is able to extend that empowerment outside the doors of the shelter. Not only will survivors gain financial assistance because of grants from United Way, but they will know how to make the best use of that assistance and how to leverage it into financial independence.