Santa Maria Community Services

Santa Maria's early childhood programming includes: every child succeeds (ecs), promoting our preschoolers (pop) and stable families. Ecs and pop provide intensive home visitation Services following evidence-based curriculum (growing great kids and ready rosie). Stable families 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. All 3 programs provide support, coaching, standardized screenings, advocacy, and education to parents and caregivers and their children ages 0-5. Ecs and pop also focus on children's development providing activities and materials to promote this. They are able to make referrals for intervention for those children that are not on target. Approximately 1150 families are served annually in all 3 programs. 750 individuals benefitted from ecs and pop and 429 from stable families 151 of whom are adults and 275 are children. Some of these are duplicated due to cross over between the programs.

Santa Maria's wellness & immigrant Services had two basic components at the beginning of the year but has shifted to focusing on mitigating social determinants of health as needs in the Community have changed. The 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. Services are offered free of charge at a variety of Community locations as well as virtually. Wellness & immigrant outreach served 700 adults and children in 2022.

The workforce development program focuses on long term strategies for financial stability by offering high school equivalency (hse) preparation classes in both english & spanish, english as second language classes, employment coaching, benefits counseling, housing supports and financial coaching at not 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 in order 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 to adults and 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 2022, 368 individuals received workforce development Services.

Project advance americorps program operates on a school year calendar. During 2022 a total of 6 full time and 3 half time members who served in various Community settings. Members served as tutors and coaches at our 4 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. The youth development program works intensively for a full school year with sixth, seventh and eighth grade students and their families enrolled in oyler schools 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, partnering with 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 located in the former site of the espy boys & girls club regularly offers and support dozens of youth for a diverse array of activities both after school & during the summer, including a sports league, basketball, art opportunities, music, dance, healthy cooking and much more. During 2022 this program served 311 individuals which included 193 youth.