Letter from Executive Director and Board President

04

letter froM executIve DIrector anD boarD PresIDent

In 2019, IMH continued to invest in both innovative and well-established efforts to support the optimal mental health of children and families. We conducted two grant cycles, committing $541,856 to support such efforts. This annual report details those investments and provides our most recent financial statements.

In addition to continuing support for numerous successful efforts that improve outcomes for our children, we are excited to be actively engaged in several efforts to create new models of support for children and families in our community. These include Brothers Empowered to Teach’s pre-teaching fellowship for college students of color, the New Orleans Youth Alliance’s Soul Rebels trauma-informed professional development series for youth development professionals, and Families Helping Families of Southeast Louisiana’s new computer coding program for youth with autism, among others. You will find more detail on one of these investments – TrainingGrounds – and their innovative We PLAY Center in the pages that follow.

In 2019, we also continued to see the impact of our investments in advocacy, which continue to leverage our resources for systems changes that benefit children in New Orleans. This has increased state and local investment in high-quality early care and education and helped make New Orleans a more trauma-informed city.

Two of our ongoing Nancy J. Aronson Core Support grantees – the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children and the New Orleans Campaign for Grade-Level Reading – have helped generate millions of dollars in new public funding to expand access to quality early care and education for New Orleans children under age four. In November of 2019, the City of New Orleans once again doubled its investment in early care and education when the City Council passed the 2020 City Budget with $3 million for early care and education. As a result of the efforts of our grantees and city leaders alongside hundreds of families and advocates, in less than three years, our city budget has increased from no municipal investment in early care and education to $3 million, which impacts hundreds of children during the most critical time in their brain development.

We are thankful to the leadership of our board of directors, who have steadily and strategically guided our work. In 2019, we welcomed Saundra Levy and Caleb Didriksen as new board members. They both bring years of experience and deep knowledge of our community. We look forward to continuing to work with grantees and partners in 2020 to promote the optimal mental health for children and their families in New Orleans.

Dav ID f ranc I s r onal D P. Mc c la I n Board President Executive Director