How Do We Use Your Gifts?

Gifts like yours help LSSI provide programs like these:

LSSI is one of the largest providers of foster care in the state, with 12 different sites across Illinois. Last year, LSSI served 2,533 children, with 524 children achieving permanency—meaning they were reunited with their birth families or adopted. Foster care services provide support for foster parents and children by providing counseling, trainings, licensing assistance for relative caregivers, and case management. Foster parents, working with LSSI, support the child’s connection to his or her family by providing transportation to or hosting sibling visits and visiting with parents when the child welfare team mutually agrees upon this. The goal of LSSI's foster care services is to return the child back to his or her family; however when children cannot be safely reunited with their families, LSSI assists with the adoption process.

Storybook Project is an LSSI facilitated program that allows incarcerated parents to record themselves reading a book to their children. Last year, LSSI held 90 events at 14 prisons and jails throughout the state. With the help of dedicated, well-trained volunteers and donated children’s books, incarcerated moms and dads select a book at the appropriate reading level of their child. When a book is chosen, a volunteer sits with the parent to record the story that is then burned onto a CD. The recording and book are mailed to the children at no cost to the family. This program is vital to maintaining family connections, helping parents maintain or begin to build loving relationships with their children. According to research, parenting through reading aloud results in sustained impacts on behavior problems in the future. Parents are encouraged to share an encouraging message with their child, with most parents adding “I love you, I miss you, I can’t wait to see you” at the end of their recordings. Last year, almost 5,000 children received books from their incarcerated parents, with almost 1,700 children receiving books for the first time.

Step Up (Students, Therapist, Educators & Parents Unlocking Potential) School Based Counseling works in Chicago Public Schools to eliminate barriers and provide mental health services to low-income students in need. Masters-level therapists receive referrals from school administration to provide individual and family counseling/support in the school setting where problems interfere with learning and social relationships. LSSI brings the mental health services to the students, working with teachers and administration to meet with students during the school day without disrupting their time in the classroom. LSSI implemented the Step Up program to serve children and adolescents struggling with anxiety or depression before they get to a crisis situation and are forced to utilize a service like SASS. Step Up will be in 45 schools for the 2019-2020 school year.

Project IMPACT (Immediate Multidisciplinary Pre-Screening Assessment Crisis Team) is a wrap-around behavioral health model that uses trained counselors, based in five partnering Northside Chicago Emergency Departments, to assist individuals who are experiencing a behavioral, psychiatric, or addiction crisis. Project IMPACT operates 24 hours/day, 365 days/year. Project IMPACT started 25 years ago in Swedish Covenant Hospital; and based on its successful model, the program has expanded to four additional locations in the last three years—Community First Medical Center, Methodist Hospital, Thorek Memorial Hospital, and Weiss Memorial Hospital. Last year, Project IMPACT served 13,043 patients, 97% of whom live in households with under $25,000 annual income.

The Welcoming Center was established in 2015 across the street from Swedish Covenant Hospital. The Welcoming Center is a walk-in, safe alternative to seeking care in the emergency department when people are experiencing behavioral health symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, bi-polar disorder, substance use, post-traumatic stress, and other emotional stressors. The Welcoming Center is staffed as a team, with intake specialists, nurses, licensed clinicians, counselors, and peer specialists, all of whom contribute as members of this unique model of diversionary care. In order to provide care to as many people as possible, the Welcoming Center expanded to an additional part of its current building due to an overwhelming community need for its services. Last year, the Welcoming Center served 1,712 individuals.

LSSI’s Healthy Start Recovery Home provides housing to individuals for several months while they receive outpatient services and gain employment. Healthy Start is a supportive environment that offers housing, peer support, case management, and on-site outpatient treatment. Residents have the opportunity to practice what they have learned in the treatment groups. Ultimately, the program prepares residents for sober living in the community. This program lasts up to one year, with the option to transition to a sober living facility as a next step.