May 2009

Welcome to the May issue of our e-news. At The Providence Plan we spend a great deal of time working with numbers and analyzing data when measuring the impact of our programs. While that's of course important, we also know that listening to the voices and seeing the faces of those we reach are just as important. In this special issue of our enewsletter, we hear the stories of six men and women whose lives, work or agencies have been positively, and often dramatically, affected by a ProvPlan program. Their stories are compelling and are some of the best evidence we have that what we are doing is making a real difference.

This is the last enewsletter we are issuing in this format. Given everyone's busy schedules, we suspect that other, shorter forms of communication may be more effective in spreading the news of what we and our partners are accomplishing. Keeping in touch with you remains a high priority for us. If you have preferences on how you most like to receive your news, we'd love to hear from you.

I wish you all a very happy and healthy summer.
Pat McGuigan

The Information Group collects and analyzes citywide and statewide data to inform the decision-making of policymakers, law enforcement, educators, service providers, public officials and community leaders.

Frank Shea
Executive Director, Olneyville Housing Corporation

"We're just a small neighborhood-based organization, but because of Providence Plan's Information Group, we have very high capacity in GIS [geographic information systems] and policy development," says Frank Shea, executive director of the Olneyville Housing Corporation (OHC). "It's an incredibly rich resource."

OHC was founded in 1988 to promote the revitalization of Olneyville through the development of affordable housing opportunities for residents. It does this primarily by purchasing and renovating existing housing stock, and then either renting units or selling them - at affordable rates - to low-income residents.

Before purchasing a property, "our staff can go to the [ProvPlan] web site and get a broad and rich array of information on codes, past sales, taxes, neighborhood demographics, crime rates, etc.," Frank explains. "For us to be chasing all that information individually would be extremely time consuming, and I'm not even sure all of it would be available to us. Continued

YouthBuild Providence gives young adults - most of whom lack high school credentials - the educational, job-readiness and occupational skills needed to make a successful transition into the workforce.

Johnny Souphida
YouthBuild Graduate, Carpenter

"Like a lot of others, I was hanging around with the wrong people," says Johnny Souphida when asked to describe his life before joining YouthBuild Providence in 2007.

"I was getting into a lot of trouble. I wasn't going to school. I knew I wanted to finish high school, but I never went.

"My mother felt it was her fault," Johnny continues. "She was going crazy. I'd go crazy too if my child were acting like that."

At 17 Johnny began to settle down and thought about going back to school. "But I realized I'd still be in ninth grade; I'd be 21 before I even graduated."

It was then that Johnny learned about YouthBuild and enrolled in the 2007/2008 class. "It wasn't easy, but I was refreshed," Johnny says somewhat sheepishly. "I'd been hanging around for quite a while." Continued

New Roots Providence gives faith-based and community organizations the support they need to sustain their programs and strengthen their communities. It provides organizations across Rhode Island with high-quality training and technical assistance, capacity-building grants, and tools to encourage collaboration and partnership.

Eleanor "Candy" Brown-McSwain
Executive Director, Destiny House

Some 20 years ago, Eleanor "Candy" Brown-McSwain stood back and took a hard look at her life. The daughter of an abusive father, Candy found herself as an adult in one abusive relationship after another. The father of her own two daughters knocked her right eye out of its socket, an injury that still plagues her today. And then, much to her dismay, she started seeing her daughters follow a very similar pattern when they began dating.

"I was watching the cycle completed," Candy says. "I was looking for someone like my father. Not until I made that connection could I make healthy decisions for myself and my children."

After a criminal conviction for welfare fraud and a brief problem with drugs, Candy began to see how the traumas she had suffered in the past were still affecting her behavior - and ultimately, those of her daughters. Forced by the court to perform community service, she chose to work at the Temporary Restraining Order Office in the Providence courthouse. Her service there turned into a position as an office assistant, which so impressed the judge that he expunged the conviction from her record. Continued

Ready to Learn Providence offers an array of programs designed to help early-care providers, parents, health-care professionals and others in the community achieve the goal that all children will enter school healthy and ready to learn.

Jessica Martinez
Teacher, The Genesis Center, Providence

Adriana Munoz
Family child-care provider, Pawtucket

"Teaching is much more satisfying when you know what your goals are and what strategies work best," says Jessica Martinez (left), an early-care provider at The Genesis Center and a participant in a Ready to Learn Providence professional development program, Early Reading First (ERF).

Jessica has taught at The Genesis Center for five years and has been in the early-care field since her teens when she worked summers in child-care settings. But she says her three years in ERF - taking classes and working with mentors - have had an enormous impact on the way she now approaches her work.

"It changed the way I view the classroom and the way I plan activities," she says. "Books and writing are now part of every center and every activity. I see a big difference in the oral language of the children - and their parents do too." Continued

Building Futures connects low-skilled inner-city adults with trade apprenticeship programs, while also improving the access of urban residents into the construction field through systemic change within the industry.

Jackie Chea
Building Futures Graduate, Painter

A little over a year ago, Jackie Chea's life looked bleak. At the age of 20, Jackie had a four-year-old son to support and no prospects. "There wasn't a thing for me to do," he says. Jackie held some minimum-wage jobs for short periods, but in this difficult economy he was often the first to be laid off. "And then one day I ran into Andrew Cortes [director of Building Futures]."

"If you're really ready to work, I'll give you a second chance," Jackie remembers Andrew saying. Andrew had offered Jackie a "first chance" several years earlier at YouthBuild, but he dropped out of that program after just a few months. "I had a baby to support and had to make money just to pay for the diapers."

He arrived at Building Futures last spring with a very different attitude. "I came ready to rock and roll," he says. Within just a few months of his orientation meeting, Jackie was an apprentice with the painters' union, making good money and receiving excellent benefits. "I've never seen this kind of money," he admits. "But Building Futures teaches you a lot about finances - how to save and how to budget. That's really important in this industry." Continued

Frank Shea, cont.

"The Info Group has convened lots of information from numerous sources," Frank continues. "In this foreclosure crisis, we've looked at hundreds of properties, so it's been a tremendous help."

Over the past four years, OHC has renovated or built 51 units - 31 of them rentals and 20 for home ownership - in a neighborhood adjacent to the recently developed park along the Woonasquatucket River. OHC relied on some 15 different funding sources, including the Environmental Protection Agency, to complete this work.

"That neighborhood was one of the worst in the city in terms of crime," Frank notes. "When we saw that the park was coming, we knew people wouldn't use it if they had to walk through that area to get to it. The park wouldn't be a success without the housing and the housing wouldn't make sense without the park. All these city and community initiatives had to work together."

Today the park, once an area heavily contaminated from industrial use, is a clean and pretty space that is well used and enjoyed. And the crime rate in the refurbished neighborhood beside it has dropped by 65 percent.

Frank, who joined OHC in 2000, has seen Olneyville face a range of challenges over the years. As recently as just three years ago, a red-hot real-estate market prompted outside investors to buy and flip multi-family houses, causing rents to skyrocket. With the collapse of that market, however, foreclosed and abandoned properties have emerged as the primary concern right now.

"Olneyville has been very hard hit," Frank notes. "We have lots of abandoned buildings, which create a nuisance for neighbors, and we've lost housing units. They weren't always good units, but they provided housing nevertheless. Foreclosures also affect the value of homes bought by residents, including those we've sold."

Armed with data found on ProvPlan's web site, OHC targets specific blocks in order to focus its work and funds most effectively. "It's worth noting," Frank adds, "that the Information Group developed these tools by bringing community groups together and asking us what would be most helpful. They've given organizations like OHC a technological resource and capacity that would normally be well beyond our reach."

For more information on the Olneyville Housing Corporation, go to www.olneyville.org

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Johnny Souphida, cont.
The small size of the program, the individual attention from the staff, the alternating weeks of construction work and classroom instruction, and the closeness of the YouthBuild community made all the difference, Johnny says. "For the first time, I really looked forward to going to school. And I actually did my homework."

Last June's graduation remains one of his happiest memories. "I couldn't stop smiling," he says. "My mother was so happy and my father was really proud."

Shortly after graduating, Johnny was accepted as an apprentice in the carpenters' union and has been working on the new Blue Cross Blue Shield building since September. "I love my work," he says. "As a carpenter, you're always faced with different obstacles; it's always different."

Johnny also likes the good pay and benefits. "At first I went a little crazy," he says, "but I learned how to save. Anthony [Hubbard, director of YouthBuild] always told us 'Pay yourself first.' I'm saving to buy a house.

"I always knew what I wanted in life, even when I was getting into trouble." Thanks to YouthBuild, he says, he's now well on his way to getting it.

For more information on YouthBuild Providence, visit their site here.

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Candy Brown-McSwain, cont.
Candy then began taking courses at CCRI, where she received her associate's degree. She went on to receive both a bachelor's and master's degree in social work from Rhode Island College.

Helping other victims of domestic abuse was becoming Candy's passion, but while working at a women's shelter in Providence she became increasingly concerned that many people in the field didn't know how to work effectively with women of color, particularly African-American women. They didn't fully understand, she says, the cultural differences, the pressures from family and community, the institutional racism, and the intergenerational cycle of violence and poverty that too often prevent women of color from seeking help or filing criminal charges against a boyfriend or husband.

Armed with passion, personal and professional experience, and excellent interpersonal skills, Candy founded Destiny House in 1997 in South Providence to address what she saw as the inadequacy of domestic violence services for adolescents, pregnant and parenting teens, and families in communities of color. Taking virtually no salary for nearly a decade, Candy supported herself in part by selling fried chicken, potato salad and collard greens from her porch.

In 1998 Destiny House received its temporary nonprofit status - it became permanent in 2003 - and Candy was getting small grants to support the agency's activities. "I had a reputation for being fearless, and I had very good direct-service skills, but I had no administrative skills," she says in retrospect. "We were serving 800 to 1,000 people a year, but I didn't keep any statistics or records. It's a good thing I didn't have too much money because I sure didn't know how to manage it."

In 2006, Candy turned to New Roots for support. "My fear was that I was Destiny House and if anything happened to me, the organization wouldn't survive," she explains. Destiny House received a New Roots capacity-building grant in 2006, a second one in 2007, and will receive a third this year. Candy has used this grant money for a consultant from Boston, who, she says, fully understands how to take a grassroots organization "from infancy to a fully prepared mature adult." "The first thing she did was to identify my lack of skills, and then develop them," Candy says. "She then showed me how to apply what I learned. I really needed that executive coaching."

Before Destiny House received its first grant from New Roots, its annual budget was under $8,000. Today it is a little more than $60,000, thanks largely to Candy's improved skills at fundraising and grant writing, which she credits to the consultant paid for by New Roots, as well as the many New Roots training sessions she has attended. "I go to every single one of those workshops - sometimes twice," Candy says. "They are so full of information that you can have the same person as a trainer and still learn something new."

Also with technical support from New Roots, Destiny House has expanded and strengthened its board of directors, which now numbers 19 and is composed largely of youth, young adults and others from the community.

Candy knows that expanding the agency's existing programs and outreach activities will require a larger staff, but she is hopeful that in the near future she will be able to add a director of programming and an administrative assistant. Currently, it's just Candy, two part-time employees, board members and other dedicated volunteers who serve more than 800 people a year. But as she looks at the growth the agency has made in the past few years, she's confident that the goals she has for Destiny House are well within reach.

For more information on Destiny House and New Roots Providence, go to http://www.destinyhouseri.com and http://www.newrootsprovidence.org

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Jessica Martinez and Adriana Munoz, cont.
Adrianna

Adriana Munoz (left), a family child-care provider, participated in another of R2LP's professional development initiatives - the Early Childhood Educator Professional Development program (ECEPD).

"I wish I knew what I know now when my own child was little," Adriana says. "I've learned so much about how to work with books with young children."

Adriana's challenges are somewhat different from those of center-based providers. She cares for six children who range in age from 18 months to nearly four. "You have to adapt your activities for the different ages, but even the 18-month-old enjoys looking at the books and manipulating them," she says.

Adriana used to protect her books by storing them on high shelves, out of the reach of her children. They're now easily accessible, as are child-friendly writing tools and materials. She incorporates reading and writing into nearly every activity.

Funded with public and private money, R2LP has invested heavily in professional development over the past six years. ERF and ECEPD - its two largest programs - have brought more than $9 million from the U.S. Department of Education to this endeavor. Both programs have focused on early-literacy instruction.

R2LP's professional development programs stress depth, dosage and duration. Courses are rigorous, scientifically based and allow participants ample time to reflect, collaborate with peers and apply new skills. R2LP's use of mentors and coaches further separates its professional development from much of what is offered elsewhere.

"I've been getting a lot of positive feedback from the parents of my students," notes Jessica. "They tell me that their children are talking more about school and that they feel more involved in what their children are learning."

Because running a family child-care business can be somewhat isolating, Adriana particularly enjoyed the professional camaraderie she found in her classes at R2LP. And, she adds, "I now see myself as a true educator."

For more information on Ready to Learn Providence and its professional development programs, go to www.r2lp.org

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Jackie Chea, cont.
Jackie had entered the freshman class at Hope High School in 2002 when his family moved to Providence, but he stayed there just two months. "It didn't work out for me," he says. "I came in the middle of the year, I had to buy two bus tickets just to get to school, and a lot of people assumed I was in a gang. There were problems in my neighborhood. There were just so many things on my mind."

Still, Jackie knew the importance of high school credentials and at the age of 17, without any tutoring and virtually no formal education past the eighth grade, he took and passed the GED exams, a remarkable accomplishment. Having that GED when he arrived at Building Futures contributed to his speedy entry into an apprenticeship.

The apprenticeship, Jackie notes, "is like getting paid to go to college." He loves the diversity of the work and enjoys mastering new skills. Since he started working last summer, he's missed only one day - to register his son for kindergarten. He has worked on the Dunkin Donuts Center - "Remember how it used to be that ugly brown?" - and the Capitol Cove development. He's now at the new career and technical high school Providence is building.

"I'm really proud of myself, and so is my family," Jackie says. "I have a future and my kid has a future. I recommend Building Futures to everyone I meet. It really changed my life."

For more information on Building Futures, visit http://www.bfri.org/

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