Discussion: I am doing my practicum at Haddie's Home. This is an organization that takes in girls in the Alabama foster care system and works to grow and empower them up to the age of sixteen. Haddie's acts as a girls' group home. The person is Gina Allen, the Director of Haddie's. I believe this picture captures the uniqueness and positive attitude that Haddie's tries to encourage in all the girls who come through this home.
Discussion: At Haddie's Home, there is a director, Gina, a social worker, Bailey, and a house mom, Anita. The other interns and I assist in very many different aspects. We help reach out to the community for fundraising, help with administrative work, talk and help see and fulfill the vision of the board and the staff, work with the girls in care, and much more. I get the opportunity to work with everyone on staff and people who volunteer. It has been a really great learning experience to see how a nonprofit functions daily. I have also been able to read and see the qualifications of various grants and grant proposals. I feel like the work I have done at Haddie's has been very valuable. I think this is an organization that is greatly understaffed and they are very appreciative of the assistance interns bring in to the office and within the community.
Discussion: Haddie's Home has a very small staff. Most of their marketing ideas come from the board. The staff is made up of two social workers, so they don't have much experience in the marketing field. Students from Auburn's marketing program have come to work on a marketing project that will also help promote Haddie's organization and its mission. The board always tried to have a member who has previously or currently works in Public Relations. Haddie's Home does a good bit of benefit nights. The other marketing tools tend to be with private donors and individuals who spread the word about Haddie's Home through word of mouth. Interns also help greatly promote the mission of Haddie's Home.
Discussion: Haddie's Home helps families of girls in crisis. They take in girls who are displaying certain behavioral problems. This can be due to several different things. But Haddie's takes in the girls for however long is necessary, while simultaneously working with the families. Haddie's acts as an advocate for the girls and also a mediator between guardians and child. Haddie's staff has made it a goal to help build up these girls and encourage them to become something great. Many of the girls don't have someone who believes in them in their lives. The Haddie's staff hopes to fill that role and leave a positive impact on the girls who come through the home. I assisted in several things while at Haddie's. I think my most personal impact had to be on my time with the girls. We built up a relationship and were able to be friends with the girls who have just experienced a huge shift in their life by leaving their home and put into this awkward and uncomfortable setting.
Experience Essay One: This semester I am doing my practicum at Haddie’s Home. Haddie’s Home works with troubled young girls and tries to help encourage them toward better behavior on a foundation of faith and Christianity. Haddie’s mission is, “to provide a Christ-centered home environment of trust and hope where girls in crisis have an opportunity to see God fulfill His purpose for their lives.” The ultimate goal is to place children back with their families/guardians. They work with the children individually to work through emotional and mental blocks and work through potential trauma that has impacted their lives. Haddie’s also works together with the families to build up the family unit as a whole. Haddie’s is in the process of trying to get licensed and open up their facility to girls in the foster care system. Their vision is to help even more girls than they currently do. To help build up a generation of girls that is confident, kind, and constantly growing past what has happen to them in their childhood. Haddie’s Home sounded like the perfect location for me to do my practicum at. Being a social work major, I was drawn to Haddie’s because to two head employees came through Auburn’s Social Work Program. What they practice is social work core values. I want to work as a social worker but I also want to work in the nonprofit industry. Haddie’s Home combines these two passions perfectly. The biggest draw beyond the already stated two is the fact that Haddie’s is a Christ-based organization. I believe it is important to help all people, not held back by what they associate themselves by or with. Haddie’s Home works with girls not matter what they characterize themselves by. I have a Christian nonprofit. I want to implement my social work practice into my nonprofit to fulfill my work there. Haddie’s Home is an amazing example of what they all would look like. I am learning how to do grants, how to work with donors, how to work and run board meetings, and how to combine social work, Christian lifestyle, and nonprofit practices. Haddie’s Home has (so far) been the perfect fit for me to do my practicum at. Experience Essay Two: Haddie’s Home is a home for girls in crisis. They house up to eight girls who will complete sessions with the social worker and rely heavily on the house parent during their time at Haddie’s. Haddie’s gets most of their funding through private donors. The staff and board are also working on benefit nights at local restaurants and hosting fundraising events on property. Haddie’s does struggle to bring in the revenue they need to thrive as an organization. They also are not housing nearly as many girls as they wish they were. This has a lot to do with recent construction the home just got done. However, staff and board has been going around to other local organizations to let them know that they exist. Their hope is to have these organizations refer children and families to Haddie’s when the child’s life fits better at a place like Haddie’s versus these other children’s homes or centers. A new bit of policy has the potential to really effect Haddie’s Home and other group homes in the state. Recent legislation has said that group homes will no longer be funded by the Department of Human Resources. This is going to be detrimental to not only group homes’ survival, but also the foster care system. Foster Care is a system that is already so underfunded and has so few volunteers and placements for children. Without group homes, even more children are going to be lost in the system. Haddie’s was hoping to expand to be able to take more girls from state placement. They are passionate about helping any and all girls in crisis. This now limits them to remaining with only taking private placements and no longer receiving DHR funding. The people who work at Haddie’s know very well the mission of the organization. They know why a place like Haddie’s is so important to our community. However, many people in the community do not know about Haddie’s or how Haddie’s could benefit them or someone they know. Haddie’s receives a major portion of their funding from private donors. Haddie’s needs a lot of fundraising help to ensure that the organization prospers. Experience Essay Three: Haddie’s Home is an organization with a staff of three people (director, social worker, and house parent). Much of Haddie’s assistance is volunteer based. There are several places/organizations in the community who volunteer time and resources to help keep up with Haddie’s grounds. The other thing Haddie’s relies greatly on is interns. Haddie’s had five interns this semester who worked diligently to assist with whatever the staff or board members needed help with. The board is made up of people who have influence in the community and can be monetarily beneficial to the organization as well. Board members are also volunteers. My supervisor was Gina Allen, the director of Haddie’s. Gina and I are a lot alike which worked very well for us this semester. She could give me tasks that she knew I would work hard to get finished. Gina is very passionate about helping others, especially children in crisis. With us both being of a social work background, we had a lot in common and shared very similar values. I learned from Gina that leadership isn’t always a loud controlling voice, but rather that leadership can be quiet and composed and still have an effect. Haddie’s loves their volunteers. Being such a small staffed organization, Haddie’s utilizes their volunteers greatly. Gina is a very organized person and typically runs all of the events. Volunteers always know what is needed and expected of them. They do tasks that truly help the organization in the end. The time volunteers give to Haddie’s is never wasted or taken for granted. Haddie’s is a wonderful organization that is actively working to aid families and girls who are in crisis. They will greatly take help from anyone who shares that value with them. Experience Essay Four: I spent my semester interning at Haddie’s Home, a girls’ home for girls and families in crisis. This was an excellent placement for me, because it integrated social work (my major) and nonprofit practice. I had the opportunity to learn about donors and fundraising. I was also able to go with my supervisor, Gina Allen, to network in the community with other people and organizations. I was also able to work with the girl we had in care. I learned a lot about her, why she was there, and what Haddie’s was going to be doing to help benefit her and her family while also helping build up another confident and secure teenage girl. I learned a tremendous amount about the different kinds of adversity that these girls may face, and why a place like Haddie’s Home is so valuable in working with this population. I received a very interesting and one-on-one experience at Haddie’s Home. Many nonprofits are smaller, but Haddie’s has a staff of three people. I was able to interact with the entire staff and know thoroughly what each person is tasked with. This was very beneficial for me understanding what it truly looks like to work in a functioning and fairly established nonprofit. I was also able to read over grants and begin to understand how they work and what each grant was really for. I learned the art to using your words very specifically in order to get across everything that is necessary in a grant proposal as well. I had the ability to work with the all-volunteer-based board. I was able to sit in on board meetings and meet with individual board members as well. I observed the strategy in the requiting the people you want to be on your board. I know how to look for people who have specific backgrounds that could benefit your organization. It is important to have someone who worked in Public Relations to be able to address the best ways for community outreach. It is important to have someone who had experience in financial work such as accounting or financial planning. Another crucial component to have for you board members is that they have ties with the community. They have the ability to recruit others and increase publicity for your organization. Haddie’s Home is an organization that holds tightly to their values. This is a very admirable trait. They don’t sway to conform to what others may want them to do instead. They have a mission that they were founded on, and even though the current workers did not find Haddie’s Home, they still wish to uphold the value system that has been set in place before they’re time at the organization. Haddie’s has several strengths. However, they are a newer organization (just about six years). They desperately need to increase their community outreach. Many people may not know Haddie’s Home even exists. They have done a lot to try to get other organizations in the community to know who they are and potentially refer people to them. One thing I found to be a huge challenge in this field is working to make people passionate about what you’re passionate about. You must make a clear and compelling argument to get people to understand why you do what you do and then make them want to help. This is a very difficult task. You need to use the right words and have a confidence that allows you to show how deeply you believe what you’re saying. This is crucial for outside people in remembering who you and your organization are as well. You must first be passionate about what you do if you ever hope to make others passionate about it as well. Nonprofits embody everything we learned in our Gender, Wealth and Philanthropy course. They have so much to account for. Nonprofits are much more human-focused than money-driven (most of the time). It is not an organization, but rather people who make up the organization. It about being support systems to coworkers when needed, helping each other if too much is going on to handle by one’s self, and building each other up so you can do the best work possible. As a nonprofit, you have to plan ahead greatly and strategically. You have to line everything up and think far into the future. These are core values we learned through our Gender, Wealth and Philanthropy course. It was also very interesting to see how this particular nonprofit was run based on what we learned through Introduction to Nonprofit. I got to see the staff and board work together. I got to see a mission be executed daily. And most importantly, I was able to see and experience a group of people who cared more about helping the community and providing service than caring about how much money they had in the bank.