Thank You For An Expansive Year

Thanks to the generosity of our community, Horizons for Homeless Children continues to provide high-quality early education, opportunities for play, and comprehensive family support services to the growing number of children and families experiencing homelessness in our community.

Your contributions have played an integral role in our ability to expand our programs and services. A few highlights of the impact you have made over the past year include:

Expanded our services:

•      •  We served over 108,000 meals and healthy snacks to children in our early education center to account for 80% of their daily nutrition.
•      •  Over 280 children accessed our early education center and benefited from a trauma-informed curriculum.
•      •  We welcomed 74 newly enrolled children.
•      •  More than 60 Playspaces throughout the state hosted over 2,200 child visits a month.
•      •  We increased the number of Playspace volunteers by 33%,  providing 52,000 hours of play to children living in shelters.
•      •  Parents completed 447 goals in education, employment, family stability, well-being, and financial literacy through our new parent coaching framework known as Pathways to New Horizons.
•      •  We provided critical thought leadership and strategic action in response to the evolving homelessness landscape, including the arrival of migrant families at temporary hotel-based shelters.
•      •  In partnership with Boston Children’s Museum, we developed and piloted the newly designed Powerful Playtime playgroups, a five-week hands-on parent and child playgroup emphasizing the importance of play for families living in shelter. Training and videos extended the reach of these playgroups statewide.  
  
  
• Expanded our Knowledge:
•      •  Our early education center launched Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) to support the development of social emotional capacity of children in our care.
•      •  We increased our resources, language, and cultural capabilities to meet the growing population of Haitian families utilizing our services.
•      •  We partnered with Neighborhood Villages and others to create a new learning curriculum for toddlers “Learning Through Exploration” to fill the gaps in pre-K childcare and education.
•      •  In a competitive employment market, we invested and created a new employee competency model to facilitate career growth and skill development for Horizons staff. 
•      •  Recognizing the retention of our staff is critical to the long-term health of Horizons, we improved our employee professional development program and updated the employee retirement savings plan, now based on tiered, non-elective employer contributions that reflect years of service. 
  
  

Expanded our Community:

•      •  Partnering with the state to address family homelesssness, we hosted a roundtable discussion and press conference with city officials, advocates, and Horizons parents to discuss the local impact of new federal funds for emergency childcare for families experiencing homelessness in the City of Boston.  
•      •  We formed and celebrated a parent council to better provide Horizons’ families a voice in decision-making on services and care. 
•      •  We developed a Horizons family engagement committee to help inform programming design, policies, and practices that lead to better participation and outcomes for families. 
•      •  We hosted Aprendemos Juntos, an event to highlight our work and introduce newcomers to our work with Latino families and staff. 
•      • We grew our community online and enhanced our digital presence, including our website, to make it easier to navigate in multiple languages. 

These highlights are just a glimpse of the tremendous difference your support has made in the lives of the children and families we serve. 

We hope to see you at our upcoming Horizons’ Breakfast on Thursday, October 10, at the Boston Marriott Copley Place from 8-9 am. Join us to witness the impact of your support firsthand.