We help families in crises.
Elderly residents, people with disabilities, families struggling through a medical crisis or job loss, those who have lost almost everything due to catastrophic personal loss — all kinds of people come to our agency in need of assistance, often at the brink of homelessness.
In 2015, Sand Springs Community Services assisted 6372 clients and provided over $384,000 in total assistance. In 2014, the agency served 6,478 clients and provided over $195,000 in total assistance. The need for financial assistance continues to grow in our community.
Basic Needs:
We provide assistance with food, clothing, Back to Work clothing, ID and Birth Certificate assistance for employment purposes, bus passes for the newly employed, financial assistance for rent and utilities for those in our geographical area, and
LOTS OF HOPE!
More on FAMILIES…
Family Forward:
Many impoverished families in Tulsa County rely on Basic Needs Agencies to provide food, clothing, rent, and utility assistance. For many years, families came to Sand Springs Community Services (SSCS), presented their need, received food, clothing, and/or financial assistance, and left the Agency really no better off than when they came. Most of those families returned because their situations did not improve.
Generational and situational poverty is a serious challenge for many of these families. Therefore, a Family Action Plan was developed at SSCS so each family could develop action steps that would take them from basic needs crises to self-sufficiency. The Family Action Plan was a great start; however, it is not enough. Family Forward takes Family Action Planning to a whole, new level.
Family Forward is an innovative six week program designed to move families toward self-sufficiency and encourages positive, forward momentum to begin breaking the ties of generational and situational poverty. Participation in the Family Forward program is offered to households with at least one member in the home that is over 18 years of age, able to work, not working, not attending school or college, and not collecting unemployment. This represents almost half of the households SSCS serves.
Each Family Forward session provides weekly classes on Career Exploration, Job Readiness, and Budgeting giving each participant tools to find gainful employment and manage money. Participants attend individual, intensive case management sessions with a Life Coach to work on attaining goals and addressing crisis level areas of functioning. Participants and their families are referred to Partner agencies to increase collective impact and avoid duplication of services. Participants receive incentives for attending classes and for graduating the program such as bus tokens, gas cards, scholarships, and graduation incentives.
Scales and Ladders Assessments are given to each Participant to identify thriving, stable, at-risk or in-crisis levels in the categories of employment, child education and literacy, adult education and literacy, health, childcare, family development, housing, income management, transportation, community involvement, and nutrition. This Assessment is critical in goal setting. Our goal for the program is to see improvements in each Participant’s Scales and Ladders Assessment throughout the twelve months after program completion.
Outcome measurements including viable data will be available for results on effectiveness of the Family Forward program and program Participants in early 2016.
Children’s Programs:
Back- to-School Project
Annually we provide school supplies, a backpack, and a voucher for clothing for the upcoming school year.
Shoes for Sandites
SSCS is fortunate to partner with Payless Shoes 4 Kids program to provide 50 pair of new shoes to our community’s children. Shoes for Sandites will happen in the Spring of 2015 so we can help our kids “Step into Spring” with a new pair of shoes!