Promise in Action: Summer 2022

Promise in Action

What’s Inside 2 From the CEO

3 Youth Advocate for Better Community Services in D.C.

4 Remembering Carolyn 5 #JustPay Lands Masters and Her 53+ $60 Million in Funding Years of Impact for Nonprofit Staff

7 Centerbridge Foundation: Partnering to Transform Community Schools

8 Discovering Her Strength Through an Array of Challenges

Summer 2022

From the CEO Dear Supporters, This has been a dizzying year to keep up with current events. At many points, the news in our nation and in New York City has been difficult for our young people to process. Yet, we’ve felt more confident than ever in the importance of our work.

News of the city’s deeper investment in summer programming for children and youth has enabled us to secure important wins. Through our Summer Rising academic enrichment program, we’ve offered joyful enrichment opportunities to help kids recover from pandemic-disrupted learning.

Through the city’s largest-ever Summer Youth Employment Program, we’ve empowered our youth to earn money for themselves and their families.

And through our summer camps, we’ve enabled friendships to blossom and taught kids how to swim. We’ve also extended our vaccine program to include 0-to-5-year-olds.

Promise in Action A publication of Children’s Aid, helping children in poverty to succeed and thrive.

Children’s Aid 117 W. 124th Street, 5th Floor New York, NY 10027

Jill Olson Chair

We’ve used the more challenging developments this year to expand and create opportunities. In response to the Supreme Court’s decision regarding access to reproductive health services, we have doubled down on the sexual health education programs and resources we offer to our young people.

And acknowledging increasing incidences of community violence, we have engaged youth in workshops to understand how they are experiencing these events, and to explore possible responses to mitigate them.

We’ve been encouraged by the way our young people have been able to persevere through a news cycle that has, at times, felt full of obstacles. They have continued to show not only resiliency but also a willingness to make profound changes in their friend groups, their schools, their neighborhoods, and this city. We couldn’t build this community of civic-minded youth without our loyal community of supporters like you.

Sincerely,

Phoebe C. Boyer President and Chief Executive Officer Caroline Gallagher Chief Development Officer Anthony Ramos Vice President, Marketing and Communications ChildrensAidNYC.org 212.949.4936 2

Children’s Aid | SPRING 2020 Children’s Aid | SUMMER 2022

Phoebe C. Boyer President and Chief Executive Officer

Above: From left, Iron Go!Chefs contestant, Brayden, presents his team’s dish to judges Sara Abiola, Ph.D., J.D., Columbia University Professor, and Phoebe C. Boyer, President and CEO. On the Cover: Aiden enjoys playing soccer at our Wagon Road Camp in Chappaqua, New York.

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Youth Advocate for Better Community Services in Washington, D.C.

Promise in Action Our Arts Initiatives Program Director Midge Caparosa, right, with our BGCA students before their meeting in Congress.

Executive Update Funded in part by Amazon, our Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) arts and activism program encouraged participants to express their feelings about racial justice through art this year; and to use poetry and visual arts to memorialize Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans whose lives tragically ended. The project caught the eye of First Daughter Ashley Biden, who was working with BGCA as a consultant. Ashley brainstormed with our staff and students on how they could make an even greater impact.

They collectively decided to host a culmination event at the end of the school year to display their advocacy artwork for the community at large. They invited other local BGCA partner sites to participate and chose specific social justice causes to highlight, including voting rights, gun safety, and more. The event, called Equity Rising, took place at our Dunlevy Milbank Community Center in Harlem and was attended by 175 community members. In addition to the artwork and information booths set up by youth from Children’s Aid sites and other clubs, students facilitated a meaningful panel discussion with NYPD police officers, crime victims, school officials, nonprofits, and other

community leaders. The goal was to discuss how these groups could work together to build a safer and more inclusive city.

Impressed by our students’ efforts, BGCA invited Amir and Zoe, two students from our program, to present our project to 250 people at their National Youth Advocacy Days Conference in July.

While in D.C., they also attended a panel with government officials speaking about their career paths and what steps young people can take to secure jobs in government, journalism, and the nonprofit sector.

Amir and Zoe then experienced the climax of the trip: meeting with aides for Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, and Reps. Ritchie Torres and Adriano Espaillat to advocate for common sense gun control, better mental health services, and food justice for people in their communities.

Zoe said the experience motivated her to become a positive force for her community. “I loved being around people who want change as much as I do ... it’s like I found my home. I will continue to advocate for changes in our community, starting small but making big changes.”

We are proud to announce the election of Jill J. Olson as the chair of our Board of Trustees. Additional changes include: Co-Vice Chairs Greg E. Kerr, M.D., and Beth Leventhal; Assistant Treasurer Peter Wallace; Trustee Emerita Amy Engel Scharf; and, new trustees Ashish Bhutani, Yasmeen Mock, and Marisol Tepetitla.

Micaela Podlipny, Remy Schonhaut, Alicea Arias, and Jessica Petznick won national Multisystemic Therapy “Whatever It Takes” awards; the Foster Care Reentry Team won Administration for Children’s Services’ (ACS) “Foster Care Excellence in Practice Award”; and multiple staff from each of the Prevention and Family Assessment Programs received ACS’ “Excellence in Preventive Practice Awards.”

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Every Step of the Way

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Remembering Carolyn Masters and Her 53+ Years of Impact

5,000+ children and youth are being served in our summer programs, including camps, schooling, job training, and more.

100% of Early Childhood families who recently received emotional support calls reported their expectations were met or exceeded.

500~ additional middle and high schoolers at several of our New York City community schools will be in the Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program this school year. Students will learn sexual health education and discuss current events around reproductive health access.

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Children’s Aid | SPRING SUMMER 2020 2022

Honoring Carolyn’s 50 years at our 2017 Staff Summit. From left, EVP Georgia Boothe, Carolyn Masters, Deputy Division Director for Foster Care and Adoption Services Maria Burgos, and President and CEO Phoebe C. Boyer.

When Carolyn Masters accepted a job as a Children’s Aid social worker in late 1966, she had no idea that she would one day retire as the longest serving staff member identified in our organization’s history. Her 53-year tenure, which came to an end in early 2020, was particularly commendable because social work is a challenging job with high rates of turnover.

After earning her master’s in social work from Fordham University, her first position with us was working with young pregnant women.

Throughout her career, Carolyn trained foster parents, found homes for children, helped settle adoptions, and coached staff. She witnessed changing needs among our families, new programs and strategies to address those needs, and the transitions of six CEOs. But during all those transformations, Carolyn’s commitment to ensure children have safe, loving homes remained consistent as ever, as did the satisfaction she received when her families succeeded. “She was always willing to go the extra mile to help a family, to help a child,” said her colleague Maritza Batista, who works in our adoption services. “She’d move

the earth if you let her, even on a Saturday.”

Carolyn’s singular focus on her families’ well-being for so many decades and her incredible memory earned herself a reputation as the go-to resource for institutional knowledge. Entry-level colleagues and executive-level staff called on her when children who were adopted wanted to learn more about their history, or when we needed to reference our archives.

When Carolyn passed away in March 2022, her online guestbook was flooded with emotional memories from friends, family, and colleagues.

Willie Evans, a Children’s Aid staff member, wrote, “When Ms. Masters saw me delivering the mail, she would ask ‘Did my trillion-dollar check come today?’ and I would reply, ‘Not yet.’

Ms. Masters, it was with you all along.

Your gracefulness was worth ‘a trillion dollars.’”

Weeks after her passing, her family graciously honored her memory by donating to Children’s Aid. In doing so, they gave Carolyn one final gift they knew she would appreciate — stretching her 53 years of impact just a little bit further.

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#JustPay Advocacy Lands $60 Million in Government Funding for Nonprofit Staff

Children’s Aid staff attend a #JustPay rally at City Hall Park in Manhattan.

Human services are primarily government-funded, and in recent years have been plagued by stagnant wages. The lack of consistent and fair Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) in nonprofits’ contracts with New York City and state governments have resulted in human services workers having some of the lowest wages statewide. Government contracts either directly set low salary levels or do so indirectly by requiring a certain number of staff for a contract but not providing enough funding to pay them all fair salaries. These contracts also generally last five to seven years (or more) with no opportunity for cost-escalators to allow for increasing workers’ salaries to equitable levels.

To demand that the government change their treatment of nonprofit workers, Children’s Aid joined the citywide #JustPay campaign.

As members of the Human Services Council, a coalition of nonprofits that advocate for New York’s human services workers, Children’s Aid senior leaders and frontline staff participated in three #JustPay rallies in the last few months.

Staff went to City Hall in their best Children’s Aid blue and showed our support for a fair COLA, and we amplified the message on our social media channels. Due to the advocacy of this campaign, we were able to secure a 4% COLA for human services workers, adding up to $60 million in new funding, in the recently adopted city budget for the city’s fiscal year 2023. After three years of no COLA, we are grateful that our essential staff are finally getting recognition and a path forward to the pay that they deserve.

There is no doubt this was a win for the sector; this initial investment moves us toward where we need to be.

However, the original amount we asked for in equitable COLA funding was $86 million, so we still have some work ahead of us to achieve our ultimate goal. We will support future advocacy campaigns that ask the city to do even more for human services workers, including creating a mechanism that will see COLA increase automatically on an annual basis, and at the right amount. Human services workers keep this city and state running and are critical to its recovery. We will continue to push for our government contracts to reflect the true value of this work.

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Photo Key: 1. The elementary school winning team at our 11th Annual Iron Go!Chefs Competition, the Children’s Aid College Prep Charter School, speaks about the healthy foods cooking competition on PIX11 local news. 2. Children’s Aid joins Coalition for Behavioral Health members to advocate at City Hall for investments in mental health and substance abuse services. 3. Our Taft Early Childhood Center preschoolers celebrate moving up to kindergarten at the Museum of the City of New York. 4. Our Dunlevy Milbank Community Center Flyers basketball team clinch the win at the seventh grade Marquee Hoops x TBC Silver Circuit Championship. 5. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, fourth from right, joins our Spring Into Health Fair, which promotes wellness initiatives, health education, and community resources. 6. Staff pose with Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine at our community partner West Side Campaign Against Hunger’s “Rock the Block” event, where we promoted our early childhood programs. 7. P.S. 8 students are mesmerized by the sea lions at Turtle Back Zoo, as part of a field trip sponsored and chaperoned by Lord Abbett & Co. volunteers. 8. Alleghany Corporation volunteers build and plant a garden at Next Generation Center with Go!Healthy. Once harvested, our Bronx Early Childhood Center preschoolers will enjoy the lettuce, zucchini, and other garden-to-table produce in their meals.

9. Campers cool off in Goodhue Community Center’s swimming pool on Staten Island.

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Centerbridge Foundation: A Key Partner Transforming Community Schools

Centerbridge staff volunteer at a garden beautification project at our Fairmont-Samara Campus, a Bronx community school site, in summer 2021.

As U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona put it, “Community schools play a vital role in achieving President Biden’s vision of building our education system back better than before the pandemic.”

But what is a community school? And how did we arrive at this point? Community schools organize the voices and resources of schools, youth and families, community members, nonprofits, government, businesses, and community resources service providers around one main goal: removing the biggest barriers to promoting student success. These combined resources often include supplemental education, recreation, and health and wellness services — all aimed at improving student outcomes. One school could tackle chronic absenteeism by employing social workers to support students’ emotional wellness, and another school could increase graduation rates by expanding the availability of after-school programs and on-site health services.

Children’s Aid first formed New York City community school partnerships in 1992, and currently maintains 20 partnerships. In 2017, we revised our community schools logic model with the aim of improving student outcomes, but needed a strategic partner to translate theory into action. We turned to the Centerbridge Foundation. With a focus on increasing access to educational and economic opportunities for young people, Centerbridge recognized the value of community schools early on. Through the Centerbridge-Bain & Co. Partnership grant program, Centerbridge provided a generous $500,000 investment to kickstart this work, and a team of pro bono consultants from Bain helped us operationalize our model. Together, Centerbridge and Bain worked with us as we right-sized our community schools portfolio, created customized action plans defining outcomes and activities for each age group and community school, and realigned critical aspects of our management structure to break down silos and better integrate existing programs with community schools.

It was one of the most powerful and effective transformations of our community schools work to date, boosting our capacity to deliver on the strategy locally. Several key takeaways from this work have informed our National Center for Community Schools, a leading technical assistance provider supporting the nationwide expansion of the strategy.

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One of the lessons from community schools is how effective cross-sector collaboration is — both at schools and behind the scenes. Reflecting on this idea, Centerbridge Foundation’s Managing Director Johanna Meadows said, “We couldn’t have had much impact in this space without business, government, and nonprofits working together.

Funding alone only goes so far, but holistic support that incorporates strategy is really impactful.”

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Discovering Her Strength Through an Array of Challenges At Curtis High School on Staten Island, a Children’s Aid community school, Musa Bah’s extracurricular activities all had something in common: they allowed her to conceal her severe stutter. As the editor of her school newspaper, she focused on writing; and with Children’s Aid’s community service projects, talking wasn’t a core focus. “I avoided speaking unless absolutely necessary,” Musa said. “The more obvious my stutter became, the more powerless I felt.”

However, throughout high school, she also took steps to overcome her speech impediment. Children’s Aid’s Sophomore Leadership Club, where she learned interview skills and practiced introducing herself in professional settings, was a key part of this.

Musa made progress with her stutter, but when COVID-19 hit, she encountered additional setbacks. Her mother, a nurse, came home from work every day exhausted after caring for COVID-19 patients. Her father was stuck for a month in Africa because of pandemic travel restrictions.

When he returned to his job at USPS, he was deemed an essential worker. Musa stepped in to care for her three younger siblings, one of whom has special needs, all while juggling school.

During the chaos, Children’s Aid helped Musa stay on track.

Staff checked in on her, helped her apply to college, and provided feedback on her college essay. “It meant a lot to me,” said Musa. “My family was really going through it at that time.” After applying, Musa was overjoyed to learn she had been accepted to Smith College to study software engineering this fall and that she had won a $16,000 Children’s Aid scholarship.

“From all of the opportunities, I’ve learned how to engage fully in chances to help others and improve myself as a student, role model, and leader in my community,” she said. “I can’t wait to go to college and continue.”