Nancy Gannon Hornberger
As we close the books on the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017, and enter our 47th year of operations, all of us at SAY San Diego – including our Board of Directors, 480+ staff members and 700+ volunteers and interns – join me to express our deep gratitude for your phenomenal support that truly fuels our work. Especially during these uncertain times for nonprofit funding, our many program participants, community partners, and key investors across all sectors of human services help us to ensure that we continue to have life-changing impacts. This is indeed a cause for celebration!
New pathways to independence and freedom from stress and fear
For thousands of youth and families each year, SAY San Diego’s extensive case management services create new pathways to independence, and to freedom from stress and fear. We recognize that no one wants their situation to be known as a “case” – yet, excellence in case management is core to our approach and our mission to partner with youth, adults, and families and enable them to reach their full potential. It is a collaborative process of assessing, planning, facilitating, coordinating and advocating for options and services, in and outside of SAY San Diego, which meets an individual’s and family’s comprehensive needs and enables them to achieve sustainable opportunity, equity, and well-being.
I’ll share one poignant example from our school-based mental health services program. In this case, we used our whole family approach to strengthening pathways to self-reliance and safety for a single father of two school-aged children. He had been in recovery, and sober for a year and a half. He had, therefore, been in a sober living home with his children. Typically, a sober living home provides a bridge between inpatient treatment and community life, and a gradual transition back to full independence. When SAY stepped in, this family had been given a 30-day notice to vacate.
By closely collaborating with this father, SAY’s case manager helped him become empowered to find a new living situation, a new school for his children to attend, and extended day programs that allowed him to work full-time, with the knowledge that his children were safe and sound, before and after school. In any circumstance, raising children is complicated, let alone with so many big changes. The case manager stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the father to jointly create a transition plan, built upon positive and stable living and school situations, and educational support for both children receiving therapy services. The case manager also helped the father to access and navigate an Individual Education Plan (special needs) assessment for the younger child, as well as needed speech and hearing evaluations.
To implement these many changes in partnership, to have a strong pathway forward to self-reliance, and to lift the heavy burden of fear and stress, has meant the world to this father and his kids.
