Nancy Sawle-Knobloch spent 30 years with Kraft before finding her way to Family Service of Lake County. She was recently named Executive Director and has jumped into her role to meet the needs of the community during this pandemic. The primary areas they service are Highland Park, Highwood and Deerfield. She came today to tell us how the pandemic has effected what Family Service provides. During normal times, Family Service provides psychotherapy to all age groups, of all income levels. They also help seniors with basic needs like grab bars, to help them age in place. For students, they provide an afterschool reading programmer to their Latino youth using volunteers, may of them retired reading specialists. Caregivers are able to seek support groups led by Family Service. Now, in the midst of the pandemic, the organization had pivoted and jumped a decade into the future in their effort to meet the needs of the community. Where some areas are shrinking their payroll and volunteers, Family Service is expanding. Last week, two people were hired to meet their goals and one is expected to be hired this week. They've had to provide the psychotherapy via Zoom Telehealth - many of then using their own computers and homes as virtual offices. A senior adult caseworker is making 200 calls a day to check in on seniors. With the aid of Zoom, the caregiver support groups are continuing. They are providing the basic needs (food, healthcare, medicine, cleaning supplies and PPE) for the 75 Latino families they serve. They have also given support to them by completing rent requests. Every week, seniors are checked on twice a week, and families twice a month. During this time, Family Service has been fortunate to meet these needs because of the donations received by local organizations like HP Foundation, townships, and our Club. Support from individual donors, their other partners, and employees have been overwhelming. Currently their emergency fund of $160K is being used for the needs during this time - administration costs will not be funded by this money. Nancy is in awe of FS employees who transitioned to remote work without missing a beat. Partnering with caterer Bella Ru, FS has help feed their Latino families with hot meals and delivered groceries. The strategy of Family Service to meet the needs of those they serve, has not changed, but have been re-prioritized some of their goals. They have expanded the hours available for counseling, and optimized remote counseling through training and build trauma expertise. They have expanded counseling staff and launched an internship program. Getting technology in place to meet the remote needs was a definite priority. They are currently building collaborative goals with school districts for social, emotional, literacy and STEM for their Latino programing. |