Santa Maria Community Services

Our early childhood programming includes: every child succeeds (ecs), and promoting our preschoolers (pop). Both provide intensive home visitation Services following evidence-based curriculum (growing great kids and ready rosie). Both also provide support, coaching, standardized screenings, advocacy, and education to parents and caregivers and their children ages 0-5. There is also a focus on children's development providing activities and materials to promote this. They can make referrals for intervention for those children that are not on target. During 2023, 700 individuals benefitted from these two programs.

Our supportive Services programming focuses on mitigating social determinants of health. The health and wellness component ensures that the underserved increase their use of Community resources. This work is accomplished through Community in kind Services with agency partners, cooking classes, health workshops, and Community health fairs. Additionally, the program partners with local organizations to provide emergency prescription assistance, free eye exams/glasses, hearing exams, aids testing & education, health insurance enrollment, and free mental health counseling. Of particular note, this program provides culturally and linguistically appropriate navigation Services to the hispanic/latino and african communities. The immigrant outreach component provides group programming and resources for the immigrant communities of the greater cincinnati area including our english as a second language classes. Services are offered free of charge at a variety of Community locations as well as virtually. The stable families component follows a national best practice model through the siemer foundation and offers direct support to families with school-age children (including preschool) to help stabilize their housing to prevent avoidable moves and the children's schooling being disrupted. During 2023, supportive Services assisted 1,771 adults and children.

Our workforce development program focuses on long term strategies for financial stability by offering high school equivalency (hse) preparation classes in both english & spanish, employment coaching, benefits counseling, housing supports and financial coaching at no cost to clients. Longer term outcomes include employment retention, improved credit ratings, increased net income and increased net worth. When appropriate, families are encouraged to enroll for public benefits and area resources to free up cash in the family budget to pay down debt, build assets and eventually work themselves off of public benefits through one-on-one coaching. A financial coach assists clients in completing a financial assessment and identifying opportunities to save money on things like check cashing fees, tax preparation costs, finance charges and other hidden costs while building savings through matched savings accounts. Workforce development offers hse preparation out of school youth while the job readiness program supports all clients as they explore career options and assists them to develop plans to reach career goals. During 2023, individuals received workforce development Services.

The youth development program works intensively for a full school year with sixth, seventh and eighth grade students and their families enrolled in oyler school in lower price hill, providing advocacy and group work using an evidence-based model. Santa Maria's program offers a combination of structured group facilitation and consistent family advocacy, helping youth with development of social and emotional competencies that are predictive of academic and non-academic success. The program also works to prevent violence in lower price hill, leading the lower price hill violence prevention collaborative that utilizes a variety of best-practice strategies to give youth protective factors while reducing risk factors. The joe williams family center regularly offers dozens of youth a diverse array of activities both after school and during the summer including a sports league, basketball, art opportunities, music, dance, healthy cooking and much more. During 2023 this program served 285 individuals which included 200 youth.project advance americorps program was ended on 9/30/23, with a total of 5 members who served in various Community settings. Members served as tutors and coaches at our 2 partner sites to help low-income youth and adults find and engage resources to get much needed assistance with their education, health, housing and employment.