2015 Program Highlights

Kaleidoscope 2015 Program Highlights

2015 was a fantastic year for Kaleidoscope and the families we serve. Internally, we implemented core staff training, refined our practices and enhanced our staffing ratios to reduce caseloads. These improvements to our operations help us provide families with the highest quality services, and we’re already seeing the results. A few of our programmatic highlights include:

  • Serving 156 families in our Intact Family Services Program, which helps families face challenges related to domestic violence, poverty, substance abuse, mental health and housing. We provide counseling, home visits and case management to improve families’ home environment and ensure children’s well-being to prevent out-of-home care.
  • Ensuring the safety, permanency and well-being of 114 youth through our Intensive Placement Stabilization Program. Through this program, a team of our clinicians provide services to stabilize youth in their home, whether it’s with their biological family, foster parent or other caregiver.
  • Connecting 115 children with safe, loving foster families, including 15 adoptions. Each of the kids we work with has specialized medical, mental-health or behavioral needs, and we offered 36 hours of training for foster parents to provide this customized care. (We are always in need of foster families! See our upcoming orientation dates.)
  • Providing 100 foster kids with trauma-informed counseling, helping them work toward independent, self-sufficient and happy lives. Our therapists give kids a safe, empathetic space to work through painful emotions, challenge unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, and practice new skills that they’ll use throughout their lives.
  • Starting 61 teens on the path to adulthood through our Independent Living Program. When we accept a teen into this program, we secure an apartment for them and provide the guidance they need to successfully enter school or the workforce, budget their income, and save for their future outside of the DCFS system. We also successfully graduated 28 young adults from this program!
  • Securing 10-week internships for 25 current and former foster youth. Through our Find Your Future Program, we give teens and young adults the opportunity to build their resumes and make connections in our community, ensuring they’re ready to succeed once they’re on their own.

We couldn’t be prouder of these and our many more accomplishments this year. In the year ahead, we plan to help more children and families reach even higher. We will begin enacting our 3-year strategic plan to further improve our outcomes, and we’ll further implement our clinical philosophy, focusing on relations-based interventions to help children and families succeed.

You can help children and families impacted by abuse and neglect! Some of the best ways to help are to become a foster parent or make a donation to support our work. For more information about Kaleidoscope or other ways to get involved, contact us at [email protected].