The Children's Haven 2022 Impact Report

The Children’s Haven promotes the health and happiness of children impacted by abuse and neglect.

Dear Friend,

Putting this impact report together was such a surreal experience this year. The services we were able to offer and the number of children we were able to serve were simply goals and dreams just a few years ago. While it’s heartbreaking that the number of children entering foster care continues to grow, we are blessed and grateful to be able to have the resources to address the growing needs in our community. Because of our community’s support, we served 462 children directly through our programs, and far more than 500 when you consider the kids who accessed our Caregivers’ Closet. Our incredible supporters took our mission beyond county lines, sharing our children’s stories with new audiences. Your passionate support makes this work possible.

We were able to fully develop and launch two new programs in the past year. These two new programs, Prevent Child Abuse Cherokee and the Chin Up mentorship program, focus on efforts to build and support strong families, preventing foster care involvement. These two preventative programs, paired with CASA and the Wellstar Family Visitation Center, really brought our mission full circle. The response to these two new programs, the successes, and the waiting lists for people who want these services have affirmed that these programs were desperately needed in our community. Hundreds of community volunteers poured into the children and families we serve to make significant, lasting, and life-changing impacts this year.

We celebrated adoptions, reunifications, first steps, graduations, and all the little miracles in between. Building happy, healthy children creates strong, caring communities for all of us. When our kids thrive, we all thrive.

Your gift truly makes the difference. Financial accountability is a top priority for our organization. We are proud to share that The Children’s Haven has earned the highest rankings from charity watchdog organizations, GuideStar and Charity Navigator, reflecting our organizational transparency and financial management. We earned recognition as a 2022 Top-Rated Nonprofit from Great Nonprofits. Additionally, we worked diligently to earn the coveted “Accredited Charity” status from the Better Business Bureau, an exclusive honor held by top-performing nonprofits.

Thank you for being a part of our mission to promote the health and happiness of children impacted by abuse and neglect. We have a lot of work to do to make 2023 better for our kids. We believe every child deserves a happy and healthy childhood and the promise of a brighter future.

Sincerely,

Marcie Smith

Donna Malone, CASA volunteer

BOARD MEMBERS

ADVISORY BOARD

CASA of Cherokee County trains, empowers, and supports court-appointed community volunteers to advocate for the best interests of children who have experienced abuse and neglect. Our CASAs strive to ensure that every child has a safe, permanent home and the opportunity to succeed. Our CASA program was awarded the 2019 Innovative Program of the Year for the state of Georgia. We’re grateful for the 167 volunteers who advocated for the best interests of 344 kids experiencing foster care this year.

Lewis Cline Senior Vice President Synovus

Dana Cox Property Manager Penn Hodge Properties Lori Davis Senior Vice President Community Bank of Pickens County Alexandra Keene Chief Deputy Clerk Cherokee County Clerk of Courts DD Lee Broker/Owner Skyline Properties, Inc.

Francisco Lozano Business Analyst Arylessence

Andrew Smith Attorney at Law Flint, Connolly & Walker Judge Jennifer Davis Cherokee County Juvenile Court

Kristi Estes Co-Owner In Harmony Pediatric Therapy Chris Luly Director of Planning and Zoning City of Ball Ground

Mandi Ballinger Georgia House of Representatives

Brooke Ford Director Division of Family and Children Services Deidre Hollands Program Director Georgia CASA Steve Page CEO ProntoTrak

Buster Cushing Board Chair Chief of Police Cherokee County School District

Rob Logan Past Chair City Manager City of Holly Springs

Tommy Pinyan Vice Chair Chief Deputy of Police Cherokee Sheriff’s Office

Read

Marcie Smith Executive Director The Children’s Haven

Shelton Advocacy Coordinator, CASA Cherokee Christina Fisher Visitation Director, Wellstar Family Visitation Center Kathy Crites

Navada Stucking Family Support Specialist, Wellstar Visitation Center

Lindsay Pena Program Manager, Prevent Child Abuse Cherokee Sharise Hackney Family Care Coordinator, Prevent Child Abuse Cherokee June Long Program Coordinator, Chin Up

Welcome to our new CASA volunteers!

Michelle Meek celebrated 8 years of service with the CASA program before transitioning to her new role as Director of Community Engagement.

Staff members and volunteers attended the Georgia CASA conference in Atlanta.

2022 CASA

VOLUNTEERS

Addie

Barbara

Gene

Nancy

Amanda

Linda

A family served by our CASA program celebrated their reunification after foster care by going on a shopping spree at Learning Express Toys in Woodstock. The shopping spree was generously made possible by a partnership between the store and Georgia Academy Club.

Baseball players and their families held a fundraiser to raise more than $7,000 for our programs!

PROGRAM SPOTLIGHT

VISITATION BY the NUMBERS

Family Visitation Center

The Wellstar Family Visitation Center offers a safe, comfortable, home-like environment for children placed in foster care to visit with their parents, siblings, and extended family while they are not living together. The Wellstar Family Visitation Center is the 2020 recipient of the Hedi Levenback Supervised Visitation Provider of the Year award, a prestigious honor presented by Supervised Visitation Network. This award recognizes our program for providing the highest level of supervised visitation services in order to support, nurture and guide families. The Visitation Center held more than 1,200 safe family visits during 2022, operating at 90-100% capacity, seven days a week. Several families separated by foster care and served by the program were successfully reunified this year!

Staff and Board Members hosted an open house of the visitation center for Supervised Visitation Awareness Month in May.

The Visitation team attended the National Supervised Visitation Network Conference in Orlando.

Team members from Arylessence organized a holiday Giving Tree to provide gifts for our Visitation families.

The Visitation program utilizes the Nurturing Parenting curriculum to teach empathy and encourage positive parenting.

Judy

Sandy

New York Times #1 Best Selling Author, Laura Schroff, of “An Invisible Thread” virtually joined our CASA Book Club discussion.

Juvenile Court Judge Rick Jones swears in new CASA volunteers.

Advocacy Coordinator Christine Clark, Advocacy Coordinator Caroline Shelton, Advocacy Coordinator Mandy Quigley and Advocacy Director Julie Carter.

CASA volunteers and Juvenile Court Judge Jennifer Davis and Judge Rick Jones at our annual Volunteer Appreciation event.

Georgia Academy Baseball Club donated Boston butts and students from Reinhardt University donated canned and boxed food items to provide Thanksgiving meals to the families we serve.

Our team joined staff and Board members from the Division of Family and Children Services and the Anna Crawford Children’s Center to place pinwheels across the county for Child Abuse Awareness Month.

BY the

chin up _8

Site-Based Mentorship. Life-Changing Relationships.

CHIN UP BY the NUMBERS

student participants

trained mentors

Piedmont Church donated laundry detergent to benefit parents in our in-home parent support program.

Staff members from The Children’s Haven joined Board Chair Buster Cushing on Wear Blue Day to raise awareness for child abuse prevention.

Mentees and mentors learned to make spaghetti. Mentees were able to take home their own skillets, utensils, and ingredients after class.

Mentees and mentors learned to use tools and built their own tool boxes.

“ “

My daughter never smiles, but she’s always smiling when she leaves Chin Up. This program is working and it’s making a difference.

– a mom of a mentee

Our mentors and mentees have developed really special bonds this year.

Our mentees use art as a creative outlet at some point during almost every connection class.

cherokeechildrenshaven.org | 9 8 | 2022 CHILDREN’S HAVEN IMPACT

RACING FOR KIDS

Critical Path Security and The Children’s Haven partnered with Ryan Vargas at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval to raise awareness for Cyber Security Awareness month and to raise money to help fund our mission. Critical Path Security sponsored Ryan’s car, generously and intentionally using this platform to advocate for the kids that we serve! It was incredible to see The Children’s Haven logo on Ryan’s car at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on October 8. Ryan is using his platform to help raise funds for our programs that support children in foster care. What an incredible gift with potential to make a huge impact!

HOLIDAY CHEER FOR KIDS IN NEED

This year The Children’s Haven was thrilled to be chosen as a featured nonprofit for the Light the World Mobile Giving Machine. This unique giving experience worked just like a vending machine. When visitors swiped their credit card, they chose a special gift for a featured nonprofit. Gifts chosen specifically for the children we serve included board games, basketballs and dress-up costumes. Prices for these items ranged from $15-25. The Giving Machine traveled to five cities across the southeast: St. Augustine, Birmingham, Atlanta, Charlotte and Charleston. We were grateful to be a part of this unique giving experience.

Team Members from Critical Path Security and The Children’s Haven posed with NASCAR driver Ryan Vargas after the race.

See Critical Path Security

Founder and CEO Patrick Kelley share the big news with Executive Director Marcie Smith.

Light the World Mobile Giving Machine and how The Children’s Haven is involved here.

Check out the video message from NASCAR driver Ryan Vargas.

RECOGNITIONS

We are thrilled to share that The Children’s Haven has earned Accredited Charity status with the Better Business Bureau. BBB Wise Giving Alliance (BBB’s Give.org) is a standards-based charity evaluator that seeks to verify the trustworthiness of publicly-soliciting charities by completing rigorous evaluations based on 20 BBB Standards for Charity Accountability. BBB Standards for Charity Accountability address four areas of charity accountability: governance, results reporting, finances, and truthful transparent communications.

After a thorough review lasting several months, we are so proud to have officially earned this coveted accreditation! The Children’s Haven joins a small, select group of Georgia-based nonprofits who are recognized as a BBB Accredited Charity.