About the Nonprofit
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Connections Homes’ mission is to prevent poverty, homelessness and exploitation for youth aging out of the foster care system or who are homeless by connecting them to Mentoring Families who have been trained, equipped, and are supported to meet the needs of these individuals and help them transition to responsible adulthood.
Our program provides critically needed support for youth/young adults as they transition to successful adult living. Along with the value of providing support and guidance to these individuals, we see our program as providing a significant economic impact to the community. According to the 2019 document from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Future Savings – The Economic Potential of Successful Transitions from Foster Care to Adulthood, “Closing the gaps in education, housing, early parenting and juvenile justice outcomes would reduce costs to society by $4.1 billion for each new group of young people aging out of foster care.”
Our team members exhibit the values of the acronym H.E.A.R.T – honoring, empowering, accountable, relational, transparent-in our work with youth and the Mentoring families. Our unique model is one of the only ones operating nationally to create and support youth and family relationships that last a lifetime. Through our Choice-based Matching model, we assure that each youth has the dignity to have both a voice and a choice when choosing his/her mentoring family. Mentoring Families and youth complete interest profiles and are matched based on lifestyle, personality, and proximity of living arrangements. Youth are interviewed and accepted into the program through a hands-on approach requiring a personal relationship with the youth and the youth’s referring organization.
Referred youth work closely with Relationship Managers. The Relationship Managers build relationships with local living/shelter programs to engage connection-ready youth who have aged out of foster care or are homeless and lack significant family connection. A relationship is built with at-risk youth through a variety of engagement activities including one-on-one meetings. After individuals are approved to participate in the program, they are given information about prospective families with whom they may have common interests. They are then given a choice about the Mentoring Family. If the youth agrees to the match, the individual’s profile is given to the family. The family also reviews the profile of the youth, and once the connection is made, both are supported as they build a lifelong stable connection. Relationship Managers provide a toolbox of training and support strategies for the youth and the family for a 12-month period or until the relationship is stable.
Those that choose to be Mentoring Families first complete an interest form and then receive an online link to access the online orientation, which takes less than an hour to complete. Prospective Mentoring Families then complete a one-day Connections training that includes instruction on trauma-informed care, adverse childhood experiences and relationship building. Before the family is matched with a youth/young adult, to complete a family history and submit the information required for a state and federal background check. After completing these steps, we then match the family with an individual, carefully considering compatible lifestyles, locations, and interests. When we believe we have a suitable connection between youth/young adult and a family, we send the family a profile for review. If the family approves the connection, the relationship-building journey begins.
We are simultaneously aligning our staffing needs so that together with our partners, we can meet the needs of the large annual number of individuals who age out of foster care and lack the support of a caring family to assist them with the successful transition to adulthood. We also provide facilitate housing option when needed to connect our youth to organizations that provide temporary and permanent housing. We also are a part of the Community Partners Program which allows us to enroll our youth in Medicaid benefits for health stabilization, SNAP benefits for food security, and TANF for emergency assistance.
