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Adoption services
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Catholic Charities has been providing adoption
services for over 70 years. |
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All major national adoption conferences in the U.S. are
presenting "open adoption" practice as the healthiest
adoption method for the sake of the adoptee. |
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The Catholic Charities special needs adoption
specialists’ collective
work experience includes working in the daycare setting,
providing home-based intervention
services, and working with grieving children, children
with mental illness, and youngsters and teens on probation. |
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In the past five years, Catholic Charities
has finalized adoptions for 500 children. |
Home study
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More than 257 families were assessed for
foster care, adoption, or custody decisions in the last
fiscal year. |
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Catholic Charities continues to serve seven
counties in assessing families referred by the Department
of Child Services or the court to provide safe placements
and/or permanency for children. |
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For foster care, adoption, and
custody decisions, families are interviewed and the assessments
are completed within
60 days of case assignment. |
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The special needs adoption assessments
completed by Catholic Charities are presented to the regional SNAP Team
for review; the approval rate of adoptive studies exceeds
95 percent. |
| Foster Care/Adoption/Kinship
Care Training (FAKT) |
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The Foster-Adoption-Kinship Training (FAKT)
Program services nine counties: Adams, Allen, Cass, Fulton, Huntington, Kosciusko, Miami, Wabash, and Wells. |
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Approximately 500 families are serviced
by this program as we service foster and adoptive homes
already licensed by the County Departments of Child Services
as well as prospective families. |
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Since July 1, 2006, 246 individuals have
attended initial pre-service training; 597 individuals
have participated in in-service training; and another 784
individuals have participated in medical training (First
Aid, CPR or Universal Precautions). |
Foster
Care/Kinship Care Services
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Foster homes are needed for children of
all age groups. |
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Currently the greatest need is for additional
foster homes in rural counties and those willing to accept older and special needs children. |
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There are more than 260 foster homes licensed
by the Allen County Department of Child Services. |
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Approximately 73percent of foster families
eventually adopt children who were in their homes as foster
children. |
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The Foster Family Support Services Program
continues to visit each foster home on a yearly basis and
provide supportive services to 260+ Allen County foster
parents by calling them each month, providing “Y” memberships,
IFCAA scholarships and In the Wings tickets for Civic Theatre
performances, in addition to providing monthly Foster Parent
Support Meetings. |
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In the first 6 months of this fiscal year,
the Foster Care Support Services Coordinator had 730 foster
parent retention problem-solving contacts, and made 1,940
telephone calls to foster parents; 49 families received “Y” memberships,
15 foster parents received IFCAA scholarships to attend
the annual conference in Indianapolis and 145 In the Wings
tickets were given for 4 Civic Theatre performances. |
Pregnancy services
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Catholic Charities has been providing Pregnancy Services in Northeast Indiana since 1922. |
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Catholic Charities Catholic Charities has been licensed by the State of Indiana and accredited by the Council on Accreditation of Services for Families and Children, Inc. Our staff is professional and has worked in the pregnancy services field for many years. |
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We currently serve nine (9) counties through the Fort Wayne office: Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Whitley, Huntington, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, and Wells. Five (5) counties are served through the South Bend office: Elkhart, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Marshall, and St. Joseph County. |
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Free counseling is available for persons with an unplanned pregnancy, as well as assistance or referrals for other related needs. |
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We will help you look at all of your options. |
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We support your decision – no matter if you decide to parent your child yourself or make an adoption plan. |
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If you choose to make an adoption plan, our approved adoptive families have completed Adoption Education and have approved home studies. |
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We are available years down the road if you need help. We have a large "post-adoption" service. |
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Catholic Charities has provided information regarding the search process to birth mothers and adoptees. Over the past year, 160 persons have made inquiries. |
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In the past year, the South Bend office has served 80 pregnant or parenting women. |
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There were 43 pregnancy clients seen for pregnancy planning during the past fiscal year, of which 4 chose to make a plan of adoption for their baby. |
Education Creates Hope and Opportunity
(ECHO)
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In the 2006-2007 school year, the program served 116 pregnant or parenting teens. The program has
maintained two case managers. |
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Research suggests that pregnant and parenting teens have expressed needs. These include mentoring, parental guidance and support, spiritual guidance, parenting classes, personal growth and development classes, and peer support groups. |
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Teen mothers are less likely to complete
high school, only one-third receives a high school diploma
and only 1.5% have a college degree by age 30. |
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Students perform better in school if their fathers as well as mothers are involved, regardless of whether or not the father resides in the home with the student. |
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Teenagers who parent before the age of 18
are more likely than others to be in poverty. |
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The United States has the highest rates
of teen pregnancy and births in the western industrialized
world. |
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Teen pregnancy costs the United States at
least $7 billion annually. |
Children's Cottage
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Children’s Cottage served more than
205 children and their families during 2006-2007. |
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There are approximately
1,000,000 children in licensed and accredited daycare
in the United States each year. |
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Children’s Cottage receives funds from the State of Indiana to help parents
of school-age children pay for before- and after-school
care. |
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Staff members at Children’s Cottage
participate in more than 30 hours of specialized training
per calendar year. |
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Children’s Cottage partners with Head
Start to offer full-day, full-year Head Start services.
The childcare
facility also partners with Park Center's Three Wishes program, a therapeutic
behavior treatment
program for children ages 3 to 6. |
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Our volunteers work over 15,000 hours each year. |
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The majority of clients who come in for counseling services at both locations report that they are able to cope with their daily life at a significantly higher level than before they started counseling. |
Fort Wayne
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The Fort Wayne Counseling program accepts referrals from the Diocese, area parishes, and the Department of Child Services. |
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We provide up to five counseling sessions to students referred by St. Francis University, at no cost to the student. |
South Bend:
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Children often act out in response to stress
their family and/or parents may be experiencing. Counseling can help children and parents increase their coping skills
to help eliminate problem behaviors. |
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The South Bend counseling program currently
serves an average of 44 clients in the office each month
and an average of 92 school children Pre-K through 12th
grade in seven area Catholic Schools. |
Brief services
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Low-income families can receive temporary
financial assistance through TANF (Temporary Assistance
to Needy Families). |
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Low-income families may have monthly gas
bills as high as $800 during the winter season (often due
to
drafty
homes), and these families may have to pay a deposit
of $500 or more for natural-gas service. |
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Catholic Charities’ Brief
Services program in Fort Wayne met with approximately
359 families seeking housing, utility, and food assistance
in the last six months of 2006. |
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The Brief Services program offers the Gift
of Warmth program in Allen County starting in February.
The Gift of Warmth Program is a collaborative effort between
Catholic Charities and NIPSCO Gas Company. |
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Utility companies can charge a consumer
with bad credit a deposit of as much as four months' average
usage. This can mean a deposit of $1,000 or more for
service. |
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Catholic Charities assists low-income residents
with prescription medication assistance, and as more
and more Americans have either no health insurance or inadequate
insurance, demand for this type of assistance continues
to increase. |
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The South Bend office receives more than
40 phone calls each day requesting emergency financial
assistance with rent, utilities, and prescriptions.They
extended financial assistance with housing and utility
bills to about 40 families a month. This was made possible
through the generous support of the United Way
of St. Joseph County. |
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There are approximately 38,000 people in
St. Joseph County at or below the poverty level, and even
more who are considered to be among the "working poor." |
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The South Bend office receives more than
40 phone calls each day requesting financial assistance
with rent, utilities, and prescriptions. They extended
financial assistance with housing and utility bills to
about 40 families per month in 2006. This was made possible
through the generous support of the United Way of St. Joseph
County. |
Food pantries
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The food pantry at Catholic Charities in
South Bend is one of the only pantries in St. Joseph County
that is open in the evening to assist the working poor. The
pantry is open Tuesdays from 2-4 PM; Wednesdays from 5-7 PM; and Fridays from 9-11 AM. |
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In the past year, the food pantry
in South Bend served 8,000 households. |
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The Community Center of Caring Food Pantry is open on Mondays from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., Tuesdays from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., and Wednesdays from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at 109 West 5th Street in Auburn. |
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Since opening in August of 2005 RSVP/Community
Center of Caring Food Pantry has served 1,199 different families
in DeKalb County representing 4,295 individuals. The food pantry is staffed by over 40 volunteers from RSVP. |
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Clients have also been able to obtain coats,
hats, gloves/mittens and scarves at the food pantry through
a Share the Warmth Program that is offered by RSVP of DeKalb
County. |
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Both food pantries are always in need of personal
items such as diapers, toilet paper, and laundry detergent,
because these items cannot be purchased with food stamps. |
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The Food Pantry in South Bend has volunteers
from St. Joseph High School, Marian High School, seminarians
at the University of Notre Dame, and from the RSVP Program
as well as clients who volunteer their time
to help give something back
to Catholic Charities and the local community. |
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About 27 percent of food in developed countries
is wasted each year. It’s simply thrown away. |
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The food pantry in Auburn is 3 years old
and now serves an average of 253 families each month, representing an average of 903 individuals monthly in DeKalb County. |
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The Refugee Services program
of Catholic Charities of Fort Wayne resettled 133 refugees
from Burma, Liberia, and Ukrainian in 2006. In 2007, 613 refugees from Burma were resettled; 12 from Africa; and 7 from the former Soviet Union.. |
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Refugee Services is composed of Reception
and Placement, Match Grant, Job Development, Refugee Preventative
Health, Extended Case Management, Preferred Community/Somali
Bantu, and Adult Refugee ESL. |
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The refugee department has staff proficient
in 12 different languages. |
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People who turn to Catholic
Charities for immigration
services are primarily documented citizens. The program's primary objective is to help people maintain their legal status in the United States and help families reconnect with loved ones through family petitions. |
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Catholic Charities staff assists individuals
in filing the appropriate paperwork either to remain in
the United States with their families or bring their families
to the United States. Areas of immigration that we currently
are able to aid individuals with are: work authorizations,
fiancé petitions, adjustment of status, petition
for alien relative, travel documents, application to change/extend
non-immigrant status, application for waiver of inadmissibility
grounds, asylee relative petition, petition to remove,
petition of residence, naturalization application, application
for certificate of citizenship and temporary protective
status. |
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Between July 1, 2006, and June 30, 2007, the
Immigration Program in Fort Wayne and South Bend have made
these accomplishments: |
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Provided 650 consultation that helped immigrants
decide which “next steps” to take for their
immigration process. |
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579 applications were filed to United States
Citizen & Immigration Services (USCIS) by our Fort
Wayne office. |
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272 applications have been approved by USCIS. |
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In early 2007, Catholic Charities started conducting citizenship classes again. The classes have been successful, meeting weekly on Tuesday evenings for 6-8 weeks. |
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In the coming months, the South Bend office will offer the Citizenship and Job Skills Seminars. |
Senior AIDES Program
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The Senior AIDES program is operated in all 14 counties of the Diocese. |
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Our goal for this year is to serve 252 participants
from October 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007. |
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The program has been able to give over 136,000
hours or $701, 000 worth of community service to area non-profits
and government agencies (July 1-Dec 30, 2006), while giving
the Senior Aides an opportunity to improve their work skills
and earn some money. |
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The Senior AIDES Program
provides a Senior Aide at no cost to a host agency, allowing
the agency to provide more services to the community
while saving its budget more than $5,200 per year. |
Retired Senior Volunteer Program RSVP
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RSVP has 983 active volunteers serving 136 different
sites contributing 195,892 hours of service last year. |
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The value of the volunteer hours according to the Points of Light Foundation/Public Sector is $3,533,892. Volunteers in DeKalb, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, and St. Joseph Counties all participated in the Presidential Service Awards. |
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DeKalb County RSVP started a Pack a Back
Pack program for children needing school supplies. Over
800 back packs were collected and over 13,000 items were
collected to fill them. This year RSVP has expanded the program into Noble and Steuben Counties. RSVP of DeKalb, LaGrange, Noble, and Steuben counties has also made over 130 quilts for Camp Watcha Wanna Do's children who are suffering from cancer, distributed over 800 coats to those in need during the winter, made over 3,000 items for those in need in the community including hats, mittens, scarves, quilts/comforters, catheter bags, lap robes, walker bags, and Crisis Bears for children who come to the hospital emergency rooms. |
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St. Joseph RSVP had a very successful distribution
of items made by their Busy Hand Group; their Warm-up provided
over 2,200 items including afghans, quilts, lap robes,
scarves and slippers. |
Villa of the Woods
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Villa
of the Woods currently
has private rooms available. |
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The Villa is located on a bus line and is within walking distance to shopping and a public library. |
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Villa of the Woods has a dedicated, caring staff to help residents maintain their independent lifestyle. |
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Villa of the Woods has
provided safe, affordable housing to older adults since 1973. |
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Our beautiful facility is handicapped-accessible and was completely remodeled in 2002. |
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The Villa provided 6,317 Days of Care to
24 residents over the past fiscal year. |
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