Education Grows
The Drueding Difference.
Our Life Skills Workshops, offered three times a year, include:
- Nutrition and food safety
- Immunizations and annual physicals
- Communication and conflict resolution
- Budgeting
- Credit repair
- Resume writing and career building
- Access to education
- Household management
You Increase
The Drueding Difference.
After Care is not unique to Drueding Center, but the length of our After Care is. Many transitional housing programs provide follow-up during the first six months, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. When those funds end, the care ends. We are fortunate because our supporters enable Drueding Center to provide intensive support for up to seven years, making a return to homelessness very rare.
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Education & Community Services
Adult education equips mothers with the skills to enter or re-enter the workforce. Our Education & Community Services staff members work with each new resident to formulate an education and employment readiness plan. We evaluate needs based on the Barriers to Employment Success Inventory and connect residents with on-site opportunities, including computer literacy, workplace skills, and life skills classes and workshops.
Life Skills: Basic life skills are often important areas of growth for once homeless mothers and their families. Working with each new resident family, we identify needs and devise strategies for addressing them. If, for example, a mother needs intensive budgeting assistance, she will work with the Accounting Clerk to practice developing and implementing a household budget. A Family Advocate also works individually with mothers on new approaches to everyday topics, such as nutrition, food shopping, and cleaning, and a Life Skills Workshop series is offered to all resident families.
Parenting Skills: A 12-week Nurturing Parenting Program is provided on-site three times a year by Tabor Services, a contract agency through the Department of Human Services. The curriculum covers responsive parenting and child development (infants to adolescents), ages/stages expectations; positive reinforcement, discipline, family morals, values and rules; safety issues, sexual self-worth, addiction and family violence; and anger management.
Housing Assistance: Whatever challenges they may face, every family views independent living as the ultimate goal and the leading measure of success. From running an initial credit report and helping each mother clean up past problems to eventually placing families in safe, affordable, convenient housing, Drueding Center calls on our vast array of partnerships and networks to open doors:
- We participate in the City of Philadelphia/PHA Blueprint program, providing Drueding Center with a minimum of 24 housing opportunities annually.
- We have long-standing relationships with the limited number of low-income housing providers in the city, including Women’s Community Revitalization Project, Dignity Housing, and Traveler’s Aid.
- We work with landlords and property managers interested in renting to our families.
- We assist mothers with all the necessary paperwork and application forms.
- We have developed specialized resources, such as a Housing Bulletin Board (updated monthly) and a Housing Resource Book, which feature the latest listings and resources to support homeownership.
After Care Case Management: Whether families are here for an average stay of 11 months or the maximum allowable stay of 24 months, they often need more time to deal with the issues that brought them to Drueding Center in the first place. That is why we stand apart in offering a Voluntary After Care Program that can last up to seven additional years. Over this time, we continue to support mothers and children in reaching their goals and addressing past trauma, so they maintain independence and self-sufficiency. Drueding Center’s After Care Program provides:
- Ongoing case management, including goal planning, budgeting, time management, life skills, and parenting skills.
- Referrals for job training, continuing education, childcare, and legal issues.
- Information about resources and programs in families’ new communities.
- Referrals to other social service agencies when appropriate.
- Advocacy to assist with landlord disputes, subsidized housing, social security, child support, and mental health.
- Continued access to Drueding Center programs and services, including counseling, childcare, the Learning Center, health services, and special events.
Blueprint Program: The Blueprint Program is a collaborative project of the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Housing Authority. Based on our track record and capacity to deliver excellent services, the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Supportive Housing awarded Drueding Center a contract to provide case management to an additional 300 formerly homeless families per year. We welcome this opportunity to fulfill our mission more widely and to replicate some best practices outside of Drueding Center.
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