Reclaimed Hope Initiative

Camp Hope camp Hope provides a safe, inclusive, and enriching summer camp experience for foster, adoptive, and special needs children ages 4-12. We serve children who are otherwise unable to participate in camp due to intensive behavioral needs, mental health diagnoses, intellectual disability, and significant trauma. In 2023, we served 71 campers, and held camp 5 days/week over 6 weeks. Rhi uses input from campers, families, and staff to inform our program strategies. We distribute pre- and post-camp surveys to assess each camper's social and behavioral development, child and parent satisfaction, and safety of camp programs. In addition to surveys, we also use face-to-face interviews, informal conversations, and onsite reviews from local professionals and program leaders to gauge the quality and effectiveness of camp activities. During the camp Hope season, rhi uses three methods of surveys to accurately capture our outcomes from a variety of lenses. Our first method of evaluation is from parents/caregivers who complete pre- and post- camp to evaluate each child's improvement in the following domains: (1) emotional regulation, (2) coping skills, (3) communication, and (4) participation. Additionally, we have lead camp staff rate individual campers on these four skill areas every day of camp so that we can gauge how each child progresses. Camp staff will rate improvement from a scale of 0-4, based on a percentage scale (0- 100%). Our baseline goal for measured improvement is 75%. Rhi will also survey parents on their experience with camp to assess how well we are supporting their needs and reducing their stress levels. Lastly, we use the child & youth resilience measure-revised, which is a self-report measure of social-ecological resilience suitable for use with individuals aged 5-23. The cyrm-r is a 2- subscale, 17-item rasch-validated measure of resilience with robust psychometric properties. This revised measure is recommended for researchers and practitioners who are interested in measuring resilience across diverse cultures and contexts. This is completed by each child on their first day of camp Hope and their last day of camp Hope to gauge how well our programming increases the level of child resilience. In fy23, we saw an increase of 10-40% across all age groups and subsets. Rhi maintains active relationships with the foster, adoptive, and special needs community through our delivery of direct services to families. We engage families not only in the work we do but as participants in our program development. An example of this was when parents in our other programming requested their children with more complex medical needs be able to attend camp Hope. With this in mind, our staff met with parents to better understand the current limitations and what would be needed to meet the needs of these children. After this evaluation, we were able to accommodate children who are wheelchair users by installing a metal ramp to create access in the camp environment, as well as hiring a full-time nurse on staff to be able to manage more complex needs such as seizure disorders, g-tube feedings, and emergency medication management. As we continue to grow our staff and organizational capacity, rhi will refine and assess data collection tools as needed to measure impact from a holistic perspective.

Ramp (racial advocacy and mentorship program) ramp offers same race mentorship to youth ages 8-18 who are transracially adopted or fostered by white parents, as well as an educational program for white parents adopting or fostering a child of color. The intended impact of this program is to implement community change on the educational requirements of white adoptive and foster parents to limit implicit bias and promote racial identity, while also giving children of color a positive racial mirror through their mentor to facilitate growth, education, and confidence. In fy23, ramp served 8 children/families. Mentor sessions are held weekly for 1.5-3 hours/session. In terms of the mentorship portion of our program, research confirms the positive effects of quality youth mentoring, displaying more favorable health outcomes, decreased suicidal ideation, improved connectedness, decreased physical behavior, and a higher participation in higher education (ahrens et al., 2008, king et al., 2018, thompson and vance, 2001). Ultimately, mentoring enhances the personal growth and development, as well as social and economic opportunity for at- risk youth. These measures would be gauged by a three-tier survey, one completed by the child, one completed by the parent(s), and one completed by the mentor. These surveys would be done at pre-mentorship, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 12 months to capture holistic change from multiple perspectives. The mentee survey would look at behavior, confidence, school participation/achievement, connectedness,sleep patterns, depression/mood, overall health, racial identity/worth and hobbies/passions. The mentor and parent survey would have similar categories, but would look at more qualitative data vs. quantitative. We would expect to see an improvement in all of these areas, with significance being seen in connectedness, overall health, confidence and racial identity/worth based on previous research. On the other side, the educational portion of ramp will teach white foster/adoptive parents to 1) know terminology around race, 2) understand racial literacy, 3) have an awareness of their implicit bias around white supremacy, white privilege, and white fragility, 4) understand how to better cultivate and promote the racial and cultural identity of their children, 5) understand the grief and loss that accompany this transition, and 6) implement strategies on how to protect and prepare their child to live in a world where race has social implications. We will gauge the understanding of this content with our parents through surveys, quizzes and role-play. All parents will be given a pre-course survey to gauge their level of understanding around these topics and help us as educators target their greatest barriers. Each session will then include role-play and experiential education, in addition to a more didactic method of teaching, to allow a greater depth of understanding on each topic. Quizzes will be given at the end of each course to gauge level of understanding and continued areas of need. If parents do not pass with a score of 85% or higher, they will be required to repeat the session before moving on in the program.

Thrive through the thrive program, Reclaimed Hope Initiative (rhi) ensures parents and caregivers of foster, adoptive, and special needs children have support and respite so they can better care for themselves and their families. Rhi hosts a twice monthly parent and caregiver support group, with on-site childcare provided by professionals qualified to care for children with complex care needs. Rhi also provides skilled in-home respite care to thrive families experiencing hardship, such as illness, job loss, or other crisis, so they can retain skilled, reliable, trusted care for their children with complex care needs. In addition to parents reporting that thrive helped them better take care of their own needs, as well as that of their children, the lasting impact of thrive is helping families stay together through hardship. As one family described, thrive "provides connection to other foster, adoptive, and special needs families who understand our reality...a place where people understand the unique joys and victories our family has as well." In fy23, we served 100 foster, adoptive, and special needs families through the thrive program, which provides twice-monthly parent and caregiver support groups, in-home respite care, monthly respite nights for children, and referral services. Rhi surveys thrive participants annually. Among parents and caregivers who attended at least half of support groups held in 2023: - 100% said the thrive program improved feelings of isolation. - 85% said participation reduced their stress. - 73% said the group helped them have greater self-esteem. - 83% said they improved their skills to cope with challenges as a parent. - 78% said they improved their ability to manage their child's complex care needs. - 87% increase number of community based connections outside of our thrive group the lasting impact of thrive is helping families stay together through hardship. One family shared that thrive "provides connection to other foster, adoptive, and special needs families who understand our reality...it isn't all sad, hard stuff; often we need a place where people understand the unique joys and victories our family has as well. Thrive has been great for us to connect to parents who 'get it,' a place where we can be real and have our stories witnessed in a community, as well as give our child safe access to a fun space with peers who have some shared experiences; a place where she isn't 'the odd one out.'"

Program coordination and training which benefits all programmatic activities.