YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago

Unleashing youth and family potential: head start and early head startas one of the largest child care resource and referral agencies in the state of Illinois, Ywca Metropolitan Chicago helps parents and caretakers find convenient, quality and affordable child care so they can work and support their families. Through Ywca's head start / early head start program, we partner with community-based child care providers to enroll nearly 500 families a year in programs designed to expand high-quality learning opportunities in their earliest, formative years. These programs also provide quality services that promote the full family's wellbeing and economic stability, such as career services and ged/esl classes.ywca's early childhood mental health professionals provide training, observations, & consultations to teachers and parents to help build their capacity to meet the social and emotional needs of children. Social-emotional skills developed in early childhood are foundational for school readiness. Mental health specialists also help teachers and parents to respond to children's needs/behaviors that may result from their experiences of trauma or stress. Between september 2022 and april 2023, Ywca conducted 414 classroom observations and 1,319 coaching sessions across head start, early head start, and preschool for all programs.these kinds of support are critical for teachers, helping them to feel supported and valued. They also contribute to lower levels of teacher stress and turnover.unleashing youth and family potential: child and adult food programshealthy eating is essential for every child's good health, growth and development. Children who eat healthy foods are less likely to develop chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cancers. Through nutrition training and monitoring, the Ywca child and adult care food program, otherwise known as tummy, provides technical support, support and monetary reimbursement to assist home-based and family child-care providers in purchasing, preparing and serving healthy and family-style meals and snacks daily to all children, ages 0-12 years, participating in their programs.coming out of the covid-19 pandemic, Ywca staff and child care partners have noticed an increase in head start-enrolled children's bmis: in april 2023, 35% of children enrolled in head start were identified as overweight or obese based on their bmis. This trend underscores the importance of ensuring children receive healthy snacks and meals at child care centers, as they are potentially the only healthy meals children receive.in april 2023, Ywca supported child care providers to offer 16,162 healthy meals and snacks. This is a 25% increase from one year ago, and a 1,726% increase from september 2017.

Driving economic equityywca Metropolitan Chicago offers people, particularly women of color, with job skills training, financial sustainability, and asset acquisition to help close the racial wealth gap.ywca Metropolitan Chicago has been providing comprehensive economic empowerment services, including workforce development, since 2008. Our workforce development services increase access to employment in high-demand, high-growth sectors such as transportation, distribution and logistics; construction; energy utilities; and information technology, and incorporates financial education, digital skills and career readiness training.leveraging our embedded presence in Chicago's south and west side communities and our reputation as a trusted resource, we target these underserved areas for employment services. Our comprehensive, trauma-informed, client-centered and strengths-based approach ensures participants are fully served and supported by the Ywca. We provide essential wrap-around services designed to eliminate barriers to participation and success, such as childcare, clothing, transportation, and financial inclusion education. Participants also have access to one-on-one in person or virtual cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt) with licensed Ywca therapists to address mental health and trauma.clients receive one-on-one coaching and essential success skills workshops, including resume writing, interviewing, career planning, linkedin, and financial inclusion. Our workforce team has also designed thryve, a career readiness curriculum that builds the "soft skills" that prepare participants to succeed. Participants focus on tools and techniques to remove barriers to obtaining and retaining employment. Topics include trust, hope, vulnerability, values and resilience along with using executive function to advance their career or education. Further, Ywca provides innovation and technology institutes (itis) to equip participants with the skills, knowledge, and resources to participate in a 21st-century economy. Recognizing that technology is part of every employment opportunity, our iti prepares participants for success in their specific chosen field.ywca Metropolitan Chicago collaborates with over 100 community partners to connect clients to employers in high-demand, high-growth sectors such as it, manufacturing, construction, major utilities, transportation, and health care (examples: comed, people's gas, discover financial, intren, itw, cdw, cta and rush hospital).

Advancing safety, healing and belongingthrough its sexual violence and support services program (svss), Ywca Metropolitan Chicago's is Illinois' largest provider of sexual violence services. Svss delivers culturally relevant and trauma-informed comprehensive sexual violence services to survivors, 3 years to adult, and their caregivers. The primary goals are to promote victims' safety and reduce trauma, support healing and recovery, and promote communities' awareness and capacities to shift social norms that prevent sexual violence from occurring.in july through may of fiscal year 2023, nearly 70 Ywca staff members, some of whom are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, helped to provide over 9,800 hours of counseling, case management and medical and criminal advocacy services for 1,169 survivors and their families. In addition, Ywca's rape crisis hotline received over 1,000 contacts and staff community engagement and public awareness efforts reached an additional 122,575 people.ywca sexual violence and support services are available in english, spanish, in-person or virtual. Our primary target communities are Chicago, dupage county and south cook county. 87% of clients identify as female, 35% as african american, 37% latino, 46% white, and 41% aged 18 and under.