Program goal: To improve conditions and opportunities for the poor and disadvantaged, particularly minorities and young, single mothers.
We fund projects that:
Prepare girls and young women for economic self-sufficency by:
- Providing the economic and personal support necessary to gain access to jobs (e.g., child care, education, training); and
- Promoting innovative ways to include indigent and vulnerable young women in the workplace.
Reduce the effects of health and social problems that threaten the lives and well-being of girls and young women through direct services and policy and advocacy efforts. Particular emphasis is placed on projects addressing the issues of teen pregnancy, homelessness, and AIDS.
Program goals: To improve the institutions serving people who are homeless and hungry and to promote the independence and reintegration into society of homeless families and adults.
We fund projects that:
- Conduct policy analyses, needs assessments, and advocacy to increase public understanding of hunger and homelessness, and to improve funding and services.
- Prepare homeless heads of household and other adults for economic self-sufficiency through education, employment and training programs, and related support services.
- Increase the capacity of community organizations to integrate relocated formerly homeless families into their neighborhoods.
Program goals: To help poor families become more self-sufficient and to preserve the safety of the most vulnerable children.
We fund efforts that:
- Link social service agencies with employment programs and provide the support to help poor people get access to and keep jobs (e.g., training, child care, placement assistance).
- Safeguard the welfare of children through services and advocacy.
- Monitor and document the effects of policy and program changes on poor children, families, and communities, and their implications for social work practice.
- Enhance the capacity of social service agencies to deliver quality services.
Priority is given to projects that:
- Have specific plans for achieving and documenting results in a specified time period.
- Serve the neediest neighborhoods.
- Employ multidisciplinary, collaborative approaches that build on efforts where comprehensive neighborhood planning structures.
Program goal: To address the treatment needs of the most underserved, with a focus on women, ex-offenders, and adolescents.
We fund projects that:
- Promote coordinated drug treatment, particularly between treatment providers and other systems such as mental health and child welfare.
- Expand treatment by building the capacity of mid-sized drug treatment programs. We will help groups strengthen and increase existing services and develop new capacity to accommodate people not being treated.
- Promote strategies that reduce or prevent substance abuse among elders.
Program goal: To help young people (up to age 24) become better prepared for adulthood. Resources are targeted to low-income neighborhoods where disadvantaged, minority, and poor youth face the most serious obstacles.
We fund projects that:
Help the hardest-to-reach youth, ages 13 to 18, assume leadership roles and prepare for careers and long-term self-sufficiency, particularly:
- Youth involved in the juvenile justice system,
- Immigrant youth,
- Youth in foster care, and
- Youth organizations, giving them technical assistance to build program capacity and monitor outcomes.