Mar 84 min read

FAMILY PROMISE FIVE: SOCIAL WORKER MONTH

The Family Promise Five is a weekly update that focuses on the FIVE topics, issues, events, volunteer opportunities or needs of Family Promise Waukesha County. This communication will update, inform and advocate for families who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of experiencing homelessness. Here is the Family Promise Five for March 8, 2024.

Our mission is to help low-income families and families experiencing homelessness achieve sustainable independence through a community-based response.

The Family Promise Five for March 8 are:

A JOURNEY THROUGH HOMELESSNESS
FAMILY HOMELESSNESS PREVENTION PROGRAM
HABITABILITY STANDARDS
INTERFAITH IFTAR
EMPOWERING SOCIAL WORKERS

INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK:

OPTIMISM

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK

Congratulations to Zajanelle who closed on her new home today.

From Homelessness to Home!

Happy Birthday to our Outreach Coordinator Maria Mundt. Maria has been working with Family Promise of Waukesha County since May 2022. Her role involves volunteer recruitment and training, partner development, writing grants, managing program logistics and maintaining statistics. Hope you have a great day, Maria!

POLL OF THE WEEK

What should the tagline be for our 10th Anniversary?

1. A JOURNEY THROUGH HOMELESSNESS

A FP Staff member shares her story

Accompaniment

Kate Wagner joined the Family Promise team in April 2023 as a Shelter Advocate. In fall she moved to our office and serves as our intake coordinator. Kate is the first point of contact for those pursuing financial assistance to prevent homelessness or seeking shelter.

This is real life . . . More people in the community need to be aware that this is a struggle and we need to come together to stop homelessness.

Kate is also a person who has lived experience of homelessness. She wanted to share her story with you. She does so in this 10 Minute talk with Joe Nettesheim.

2. FAMILY HOMELESSNESS PREVENTION PROGRAM

Changes to the process for financial assistance to prevent homelessness

Mission

This past fall, Family Promise of Waukesha County received a grant from the State of Wisconsin to prevent family homelessness. These funds can be used for rent assistance, utility assistance, moving costs, and security deposits. All of this is consistent with what we have offered to prevent family homelessness in the past.

What is changing is our process. Some new steps in our process are:

Families must demonstrate that they are at imminent risk of losing their home. (ie. have an eviction notice or five day warning notice)
Conducting a barriers assessment developed by the State of Wisconsin
Entering interested families into a state database
Selecting families off the Coordinated Entry list which prioritizes need
Inspecting each residence to ensure its habitability
Asking landlords to sign an agreement that they are willing to accept assistance from a state managed fund

While adapting to this new process has taken some time it will provide families who receive financial assistance access to additional housing resources. It will also better track the number of families in Waukesha County who are in need of rent assistance.

Thank you to our staff who have been working diligently to implement the new process.

POLL OF THE WEEK

What should our tagline be for our 10th Anniversary?

0%Standing on shoulders
0%Moving families from homelessness to home for 10 years
0%10 years of serving families experiencing homelessness
0%Opening the doors to home for 10 years

You can vote for more than one answer.

Submit your idea to joe@familypromisewaukeshawi.org

3. HABITABILITY STANDARDS

Seeking volunteers to assess habitability

Volunteer

Family Promise will be looking to engage volunteers who could assist in ensuring that the residences of prevention applicants meet the Habitability Standards. This assessment reviews items such as accessibility, security, ventilation, cleanliness and sanitary, testing water supply, fire alarms and smoke detectors are operational and HVAC is operating.

To help with the assessment, volunteers would need to complete two online training sessions and then accompany a staff member on visits until they felt comfortable completing the form on their own. Volunteers would be needed starting in April.

To express your interest, please contact Maria maria@familypromisewaukeshawi.org .

4. INTERFAITH IFTAR

You’re invited to an interfaith event

Community

You are invited to an adult interfaith Iftar on Friday, March 15th starting at 5:30pm at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee/Brookfield (ISM). ISM is a partner with Family Promise of Waukesha County. Iftar is the time when muslims break their Ramadan fast. The evening will include a mosque tour, a short presentation on Ramadan, some discussions, and dinner. Registration is requested.

You can register below to take this opportunity to learn and develop relationships within our community.

Iftar will be held at:

ISM Brookfield

16670 Pheasant Dr

Brookfield, WI 53005

If you have any questions, email info@ismwest.org.

5. EMPOWERING SOCIAL WORKERS

March is national social worker month

Mission

The month of March is set aside to celebrate and honor the work of those dedicated to the betterment of their community through social work. We are extremely fortunate to have three dedicated, compassionate, focused social workers on our staff.

Courtney Rutkowski is our Family Services Director. Courtney joined our staff as a Case Manager in November 2021. She now oversees our programs and provides support to all of our efforts to help families escape poverty. She has a masters degree in social work from UW- Whitewater.

Kelly Hawkins joined our staff in November 2022. Her work is focused on being a Family Advocate for families who are participating in the Family Homelessness Prevention Program. Kelly is known for her kindness and strong desire to help everyone.

Shayla Carey is our newest staff member having joined our team on February 19. Her focus will be on serving as a Family Advocate for families in our shelter and stabilization programs.

During Social Work Month, take time to learn more about the many positive contributions of the profession, and use the items in our toolkit to celebrate all the social workers you know.