AFTER HARDSHIPS,
NEW BEGINNINGS

“We are just very happy to be here. Here is freedom—the land of opportunity.”
Abdirizak Farhan, Somali Bantu refugee

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Adoption Children's Services Immigration Services
Foster Care Counseling Services Older Adult Services
Kinship Care Community Services Wish list donations
Pregnancy Services Refugee Resettlement  

 

Adoption

Adoption services

Catholic Charities has been providing adoption services for over 70 years.
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. 
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.
In the past five years, Catholic Charities has finalized adoptions for 500 children.

Home study

More than 257 families were assessed for foster care, adoption, or custody decisions in the last fiscal year.
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.
For foster care, adoption, and custody decisions, families are interviewed and the assessments are completed within 60 days of case assignment.
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)

The Foster-Adoption-Kinship Training (FAKT) Program services nine counties: Adams, Allen, Cass, Fulton, Huntington, Kosciusko, Miami, Wabash, and Wells.
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.
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

Foster homes are needed for children of all age groups.
Currently the greatest need is for additional foster homes in rural counties and those willing to accept older and special needs children.
There are more than 260 foster homes licensed by the Allen County Department of Child Services.
Approximately 73percent of foster families eventually adopt children who were in their homes as foster children.
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.
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

Pregnancy services

Catholic Charities has been providing Pregnancy Services in Northeast Indiana since 1922.
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.
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.
Free counseling is available for persons with an unplanned pregnancy, as well as assistance or referrals for other related needs.
We will help you look at all of your options.
We support your decision – no matter if you decide to parent your child yourself or make an adoption plan.
If you choose to make an adoption plan, our approved adoptive families have completed Adoption Education and have approved home studies.
We are available years down the road if you need help. We have a large "post-adoption" service.
Catholic Charities has provided information regarding the search process to birth mothers and adoptees. Over the past year, 160 persons have made inquiries.
In the past year, the South Bend office has served 80 pregnant or parenting women.
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)

In the 2006-2007 school year, the program served 116 pregnant or parenting teens. The program has maintained two case managers.
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.
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.
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.
Teenagers who parent before the age of 18 are more likely than others to be in poverty.
The United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world.
Teen pregnancy costs the United States at least $7 billion annually.

 

Children's Services

Children's Cottage

Children’s Cottage served more than 205 children and their families during 2006-2007.
There are approximately 1,000,000 children in licensed and accredited daycare in the United States each year.
Children’s Cottage receives funds from the State of Indiana to help parents of school-age children pay for before- and after-school care.
Staff members at Children’s Cottage participate in more than 30 hours of specialized training per calendar year.
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.
Our volunteers work over 15,000 hours each year.

 

Counseling Services

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

The Fort Wayne Counseling program accepts referrals from the Diocese, area parishes, and the Department of Child Services.
We provide up to five counseling sessions to students referred by St. Francis University, at no cost to the student.

South Bend:

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.
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.

 

Community Services

Brief services

Low-income families can receive temporary financial assistance through TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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

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.
In the past year, the food pantry in South Bend served 8,000 households.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
About 27 percent of food in developed countries is wasted each year. It’s simply thrown away.
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.

 

REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT

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..
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.
The refugee department has staff proficient in 12 different languages.

 

Immigration Services

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.
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.
Between July 1, 2006, and June 30, 2007, the Immigration Program in Fort Wayne and South Bend have made these accomplishments:
Provided 650 consultation that helped immigrants decide which “next steps” to take for their immigration process.
579 applications were filed to United States Citizen & Immigration Services (USCIS) by our Fort Wayne office.
272 applications have been approved by USCIS.
In early 2007, Catholic Charities started conducting citizenship classes again. The classes have been successful, meeting weekly on Tuesday evenings for 6-8 weeks.
In the coming months, the South Bend office will offer the Citizenship and Job Skills Seminars.

 

Older adult services

Senior AIDES Program

The Senior AIDES program is operated in all 14 counties of the Diocese.
Our goal for this year is to serve 252 participants from October 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007.
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.
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

RSVP has 983 active volunteers serving 136 different sites contributing 195,892 hours of service last year.
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.
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.
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

Villa of the Woods currently has private rooms available.
The Villa is located on a bus line and is within walking distance to shopping and a public library.
Villa of the Woods has a dedicated, caring staff to help residents maintain their independent lifestyle.
Villa of the Woods has provided safe, affordable housing to older adults since 1973.
Our beautiful facility is handicapped-accessible and was completely remodeled in 2002.
The Villa provided 6,317 Days of Care to 24 residents over the past fiscal year.


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