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From the Executive Director |
Although I have only been the Executive Director since April 10, 2006, I have learned the ups and downs of helping low income clients reach self sufficiency. We continue to fight the battle of doing more with less. Despite this continued seeking of more funds, we continue to pursue reaching the mission and goals of the organization to help people help themselves. Early Head Start and Head Start continue to provide quality challenges and opportunities for the children in the programs. Thanks to a dedicated Staff, Policy Council, Board of Directors and support staff, the programs remains strong and is full for the coming year. I continue to seek Congressional support for funding the need for a new Head Start facility. Hopefully, following the election, we will be able to convince our Congressional delegation our dire needs to replace a facility that has long served the needs of the community and needs to be replaced. The Domestic Violence Program continues to be a model for other programs around the state as leadership and a dedicated staff has been successful in grant seeking to increase support and advocacy services for victims of Domestic Abuse. The program has added some new services through partnerships with the legal system. The Program Director and staff in that program are to be commended for the success of the program. The Child Care Link program continues to recruit and supply training for the daycare needs over the tri-county area it serves. The need for child care is becoming even more prevalent with the many new businesses arriving in our communities as well as the high cost of living forcing both parents to work full time jobs. The Child Car Link program has also became an important part of the referral and training activity which makes for quality daycare programs. The Employment and Training program continues to be very viable under strong leadership and a very capable staff. The program continues to struggle to keep the necessary funding to serve the clients in need of employment training, but I continue to work with the state on getting the Summer Youth Employment program reinstated within Montana as it was a couple of years ago. Employment and Training has been instrumental in getting our ROMA Logic Model up and functioning. The model is very important in tracking services to clients and dealing with accountability issues. The agency has recently gone through both ROMA and CDS training which are the major components of the reporting system for the agency. Adult Basic and Learning Educations (ABLE) has been very busy getting clients prepared for G.E.D. testing. The program has given a large number of G.E.D. exams thus helping clients further their eligibility for better employment experiences and schooling. High energy costs have kept our Energy program swamped with applications for energy assistance as well as weatherization projects. The new Energy program staff has been very busy getting the necessary training for energy audits as well as other services the program provides. The Energy program staff is to be commended for getting the efficiency of the program in order and ready to serve the needs of their clients. The Housing program has been extremely busy in working on providing rental assistance through their work with the landlords. They continue the inspection process to make sure the needs of their clients are met and that ways of helping clients become self sufficient is a priority. The Mutual Self Help Housing project has broke ground and this will be an example of how people can work together to build neighborhoods. The Food Bank has seen some re-organizing and improvement. The increased number of families seeking help has tasked the Food Banks resources in making food available, but the community continues to support the Food Bank. The staff and volunteers are to be commended for their work. From the administrative end of the agency, our Fiscal Officer is to be commended for her role in keeping track of the agencies receipts and expenditures. Her staff is to be commended for their role in keeping track of the payroll for the large number of employees we have. The Administrative Officer-Human Resource person has had a very busy year with keeping employee files up date, hiring new people and addressing all the other necessary paper work required in an agency of our sorts. She is to be commended for the dedication she has shown to the agency in keeping administrative procedures running very smooth. After my short tenure here at HRDC, I can certainly appreciate what our staff does with so little resources. Even though the staff is underpaid, they continue to be the heart of the agency and through their efforts along with the efforts of the Board members, volunteers and the support from our communities, they continue to focus on helping people help themselves. The challenges of this organization are many, and I along with my professional staff will meet the challenges and continue to strengthen the agency and its programs. It has been very challenging for me as the Executive Director, but it has also been an honor to serve in that capacity. I look forward to another productive and successful year in 2007.
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This page last updated on
Sunday, February 11, 2007 |
