Since the inception of United Way of Larimer County's WomenGive program almost 10 years ago, hundreds of local women have come together to impact hundreds of more women and their children on their path to a brighter future. Thanks to your support, WomenGive has experienced significant growth in members, scholarship recipients, and graduates.
We're excited to announce that United Way and Project Self-Sufficiency, a leading program supporting single moms and dads in Larimer County on their road to self-sufficiency, are partnering on a new WomenGive Navigator position that will provide improved case management and enhanced access to wraparound services for all of our WomenGive scholarship recipients.
Approximately 80% of WomenGive recipients are also enrolled in Project Self-Sufficiency. This partnership allows us to expand the quality of our case management services to the remaining 20% of WomenGive recipients who are not enrolled in Project Self-Sufficiency.
In 2014, we identified a need for additional case management and improved access to community services to help WomenGive scholarship recipients, particularly those not already enrolled in another program, and their children overcome various obstacles on their path to a brighter future. At that time we established a dedicated WomenGive staff person to provide this support, and since then, we've learned more about the different needs of our recipients and the best way to address those needs.
This partnership brings improved efficiency and effectiveness to the programmatic side of WomenGive, with enhanced case management training and clinical supervision, accountability, navigation resources, and outcome measurement tools. Ultimately, this will lead to better long-term outcomes for scholarship recipients and their children and an even greater return on your investment through the WomenGive program.
In addition, WomenGive is a key component of United Way's collective impact movement to decrease poverty in Larimer County by helping local children and families succeed in school, work and life. This partnership embraces the collective impact philosophy that "together, we're better" and enables the opportunity for WomenGive to plug-in to the continuum of services in our community that provide support to single parents and their children.
After some transitioning we are excited to announce that Joni Antonia, MSW has been hired to serve as the WomenGive Navigator and started working in this shared capacity in early January. Joni earned her Master of Social Work degree from University of Denver and has significant experience in case management, program development, and community outreach.
United Way of Larimer County and Project Self-Sufficiency are co-funding and co-managing this newly formed position and Joni will split her time between the two organizations. In this shared capacity, Joni will be doing community outreach and engagement for both programs with the goal of reaching more single parent families in Larimer County, deepening relationships with childcare providers and educational institutions, and providing expertise on childcare issues and policies to both organizations.
"The role of WomenGive Navigator combines my passion for direct family service with the opportunity to implement change at a broader community level. I'm excited to work in a collaborative capacity intended to bring the community together," Joni said. "I'm committed to increasing the accessibility of the services provided by both United Way's WomenGive program and Project Self-Sufficiency to those who will benefit the most. Most of all, I am thankful for the opportunity to contribute to the strengthening of Larimer County!"
Copyright 2015 United Way of Larimer County
