2021–2024 Strategic Plan
VISIONARY
VISIONARY A plan is pointless without profound purpose and a bold drive to succeed. As we begin our new three-year strategic plan, we intentionally set a vision that is brilliant, challenging, and a test of our mission and character. This plan is informed and designed by the diverse needs and views of our people: the Center for Child Counseling board, leadership, therapists, staff, administrators, funding partners – and most importantly, the children and families we serve – because there is no vision attained without the inclusion and ownership of each contributing member. The focus areas and goals for achievement from now through 2024 are presented with clear objectives that will further shape us as an organization of profound vision and change. The families we serve and the organizations we train will develop into trauma-informed communities that end the suffering of children and adults over generations of time. This plan looks to the sun as a representation of our vision: a force of illumination that shows the way, with each beam and ray joining to create a bright center of light, warmth, and healing we all come to share.
It is the name we choose for this and every future strategic plan that guides us.
Visionary This is who we are and what we believe. We are Center for Child Counseling:
We Believe In:
building the foundation for playful, healthful, and hopeful living for children, families, and communities. We envision healthy, resilient children and families through ACEs-aware and trauma-informed communities. Our values are born from love, family, opportunity, and ingenuity.
A Way of Being with Children The open and trusting nature of children is precious, calling us to nurture and respond to their needs through informed and thoughtful choice of our actions and words. A Trauma-Informed Focus We work to understand, prevent, and heal the impact of trauma on children’s health and relationships, building communities of awareness, equity, and action to address adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and trauma. Fighting on the Frontline We pledge to support children in their most vulnerable moments as trusted first responders to family and community crisis. Healing and Resilience We exist to bring healing to children and family generations, building their resilience and strength to end cycles of suffering; likewise, we promise to care for our healers in their dedication and service to others. Modeling Success Our goal is to deliver success to our community and others through teaching, training, and replication of a proven approach to ending ACEs and trauma. Relentless Initiative Center for Child Counseling is shaping the field by encouraging forward-thinking and out-front leaders who transform our practice with intelligence, heart, and integrity.
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OUR EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
a vision for a supportive environment yielding extraordinary professionals
We hold a vision for exceptional support and success for employees of Center for Child Counseling. We promise to invest in the potential of each team member, actively listen to and recognize their leadership, care for them as individuals with personal lives and priorities, and strengthen their abilities through training, opportunities, and shared accountability.
Our primary objectives: • Conduct a training needs assessment to develop and implement a comprehensive training plan. Our full employee investment includes onboarding orientation training, 90-day training timeline, a formalized benefits package, a training and supervision commitment, an annual training calendar and learning plan, and compliance monitoring. • Design and implement staff wellness initiatives. Our team members will receive Healing the Healer training and wellness kits to strengthen their own resilience, good health, and self-care while attending to the high-demand needs of our clients.
• Enhance performance management system including a competency model for all employees. We will provide our team members clear, concise, and measurable guidance to help them achieve goals. Improving our management system includes updated job descriptions and performance evaluations written with clear competencies, expectations, and measures, and an employee salary compensation package acknowledging experience and certifications. • Assess and continually improve 2-way communication system. Improvements include a formalized orientation timeline tracked in our
Litmos training platform, a strategic communication plan between leadership and staff, a formal schedule of staff meetings, and a new management retreat to address strategic plan areas of focus. • Continue to build a high-performance workplace by attracting seasoned, diverse and local talent which includes restructuring of employee benefits and compensation. We will consistently assess and improve our value proposition, the benefits we provide, how we recognize and celebrate achievement, and how we incentivize high-performance through salary, training, and any supportive asset we can offer.
Our strategic motto is OWN IT!, incorporating an inspiring employee campaign utilized in our messaging and communications, including during onboarding of new staff. Our culture is developed with intention to retain its unique and supportive character and insight where staff is empowered to own their part and responsibility in the success of the whole team and agency. Team members are engaged through the sharing and recognition of their work with clients in thought, stories, and contributions. With exception dedication we will maintain clear and reciprocal communication between staff and leadership, value the career growth and path of each person and position, promote listening through annual staff satisfaction and engagement surveys, and use every creative means to support and acknowledge work well done.
• Focus on safety practices as a key priority. The safety and security of our staff and clients will remain a clear objective, with training, measures, and monitoring assuring we are operating within best practices. • Develop and implement plans to cultivate and maintain our unique culture.
Our vision for success: creating a culture of individual and team ownership of goals.
Healing the Healers Creating Happy, Healthy Healers and a Happy, Healthy Workforce We acknowledge the personal sacrifice that is part of our chosen profession. When confronted with the level of trauma and pain overwhelming our clients and community, it is easy for healers to grow tired and burdened. Sometimes we carry this burden while working through our own personal, professional, or societal traumas.
• As fellow healers, we promise to care for our own, supporting each other with priority and purpose. We will look out for one another. • We will recognize and honor when time and healing is necessary for practitioners to be available to heal others. • We will provide human and professional resources, development, and programs to ensure the highest level of quality care for our staff.
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COMMUNIT Y AWARENESS a vision for building trauma-informed communities
We share a vision for creating trauma-aware adults within our homes, schools, and community service centers who recognize and stop childhood trauma and abuse in its tracks, are part of the healing process, and ensure children grow healthy in mind and body.
Center for Child Counseling: Building Trauma-Informed Communities Our primary objectives: • Strengthen and expand partnerships in support of our mission. Growing relationships that are strong and mutually valuable is central to our vision. These include deeper partnerships with corporate sponsors and family foundations and entering into formal agreements with aligned community organizations. • Enhance promotion of our organization: tell our story. We will humanize our work through stories that engage and connect with our various communities, including the sharing of information within our annual impact report, A Way of Being with Children series, vision plans, and educational information. We will contract quality assistance in public relations and branding to support our communications efforts and staff. • Deepen engagement with key stakeholders: our donors, grantors, funders, partners, and parents. Enhanced engagement is reliant on an annually updated Development and Communications Plan to guide our efforts. A more detailed internal and external communications plan will be developed using the Planner platform.
OUR GOAL: Create trauma-aware adults within our homes, schools, and community service centers who recognize and stop • Design and implement a robust childhood trauma and abuse in its tracks, are part of the healing process, and ensure children grow healthy in mind and body. employee ambassador program. Center for Child Counseling staff hold many gifts and talents that may Meet Elio He is born in a trauma-informed community, further our mission. To optimize staff surrounded by adults trained to understand roles and contribution, we will roll and respond to children and families when they experience crisis. out Strengths Finder for all departments and develop Community Health Community Hall Mom suffers post-partum accompanying curriculum. Elio grows strong under depression but is connected the care of trauma-informed Employee ambassadors to the support she needs to adults in his life. As a young make Elio feel safe and will be identified by attorney, he fights beside other secure as his growing leaders to create policies brain develops. their strengths to that protect children, giving back to the community enhance organizational that raised him. promotion such as social media, publishing a book of Fighting ACEs articles, Neighborhood Home Elio acts out at others Elio’s sister falls ill, and and partnering getting off the school bus. his parents are forced to His neighborhood police with state-level work extra jobs to care for officer knows Elio is grieving her. Elio learns to manage organizations like The the loss of his sister. The his emotions with online officer is a safe and caring therapy, while Mom and Children’s Movement of figure in his life who helps Dad receive parenting support. buffer Elio’s feelings Florida for higher visibility of stress. in communications.
• Maximize the utilization of social media with a focus on featuring real stories. We will maintain a highly-engaged social media practice that places the focus of messaging, video, images, and sound around the compelling and moving stories of the children and families we serve. Engaging the interest and talent of staff who enjoy and excel in social media is a goal of this practice.
School
Elio’s teachers understand he is in trauma after his sister dies. They provide him care and time to deal with fear and anger, reinforcing the resiliency skills he is learning through therapy.
Our vision for community awareness: people are ready to assume their place in a trauma-informed community.
Prevention Fighting ACEs Center for Child Counseling’s research and effort to publish A Public Health Approach to Fighting ACEs in Palm Beach County (and its subsequent Executive Summary) led our organization to assume a pivotal role in the prevention of early childhood trauma: as the growing authority on trauma training for individuals responsible for parenting, educating or providing safety or healthcare to a child. Opportunities to share the philosophy and methodology of Center for Child Counseling programming grew abundant and necessary, especially during the pandemic, and resulted in expanding events such as Lead the Fight to a state-wide level and diversifying the manual A Way of Being with Children to specify family, classroom, or healthcare situations. Our prevention efforts are reliant on a continuous push of multi-channel information that educates and engages community stakeholders in the fight.
Our primary objectives:
ACES PREVENTION
• Prioritize general and targeted ACEs education and awareness. A concerted effort through training, PR/ marketing, advocacy and education will result in Center for Child Counseling leading a nationwide ACEs learning conference, producing a series of ACEs brochures funded by Florida Blue Foundation, and expanding business and philanthropic engagement in the cause of preventing ACEs.
• L ocal and national promotion of A Way of Being with Children. A Way of Being with Children offers practical, insightful information, strategies, and activities for teachers, parents, and adult caregivers of children. It focuses on attitude, knowledge, and skills to foster positive caregiver-child relationships. • All Center for Child Counseling staff members receive this training. • A Way of Being will be packaged and marketed to appropriate audiences
(parents, educators, healthcare and co-location sites, children’s agencies such as ELCs and CSCs, etc.) on a local, regional, and national basis, through funding support from Early Learning Coalition, Children’s Services Council, and Florida Blue Foundation. • Dedicated website pages include information on purchase options for digital or printed curriculum, and a social media awareness campaign includes website resources and videos.
ACEs Theory of Change Step 1: Know the Signs
UNDERSTANDING how risk factors and exposures to trauma can affect children for life is half the battle in fi ghting ACEs. When a child is exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences like those listed in the inner circle, those untreated traumas can cause negative behaviors like those listed in the outer circle, often with life-long consequences.
ACEs Theory of Change Step 2: Know Your Role
PREVENTION is the best weapon against ACEs. Children from ages birth to grade 5 count on the adults in their lives to keep them safe at home and in the community. Children also look to see how adults and others handle problems and stress to learn how to regulate their own behavior. IDENTIFICATION of a child’s needs ensures they are referred to treatment if necessary. TREATMENT brings healing, resilience, and strength to avoid long-term damage to mental and physical health. Promoting ACEs education, awareness, and action builds capacity in parents, other adults, and children to stop trauma in its tracks.
Birth to Grade 5
ACEs Theory of Change Step 3: Know the Solutions
INTEGRATION of highly-trained professionals throughout a child’s community fights ACEs in the places children need them most. Educators, doctors, nurses, faith leaders, police, and the courts change the game when they receive targeted trauma training. LOCATION of professional therapists in schools, pediatric offices, child welfare programs, and the court system provides children immediate safety, advocacy, and emotional support.
Birth to Grade 5
generational cycles of abuse, ample buffering relationships, greater racial and cultural equity, and healthier emotions and behaviors.
ACEs Theory of Change
This is what success looks like:
ADUL TS
THE ACES BATTLE CAN BE WON. When children grow up in a trauma-informed community, they realize life-changing benefits: an end to generational cycles of abuse, ample buffering relationships, greater racial and cultural equity, and healthier emotions and behaviors.
EN R ILD
• increased brain development, social skills, and self-regulation of behavior • better functioning, academic performance, and emotional expression
• a better understanding of child development, behavior, and needs • healthy parenting and communication • reduced intergenerational ACEs
SC H
• increased ability to learn • greater attachment to others • reduced involuntary examination or institutionalization (Florida Baker Act) • less classroom disruption • reduced healthcare costs
AND COMMUNIT LS Y OO
This is what success looks like:
CH
Step 4: Know the Success
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CLIENT EXPERIENCE a vision for transformational service
Center for Child Counseling’s transformational delivery of programs and services is the result of always considering children first — anticipating the needs of families and providing lifesaving resources when they are needed most. We meet community need by proactively removing barriers to our help, information and support.
Our primary objectives: • Identify opportunities to improve client experiences with our organization. An assessment of client connection points is needed to enhance, add or change interactions to provide our most positive experience. • • Expand virtual services and outreach. Building on what we’ve learned, we will further reduce wait list time, increase the success of virtual visits for more children, and maximize outreach efforts by constantly improving our virtual capability. • Review and revise client engagement and termination process. This foundational element of our system must be owned and managed with priority and purpose. Once revised, this process will be regularly reviewed to ensure it reflects our high standards for operations.
THE CLIENT PROCESS
• Develop continuity of care plan for school-based and pediatric officebased programs. To promote early intervention across communities, we will continue to develop the sustainability of integrated models of care, particularly schoolbased and pediatric mental health.
• E nsure consistent customer service is demonstrated with all clients (viewing them through TIEL – a Trauma-Informed Equity Lens)uity Center for Child Counseling staff must be especially respectful and aware of our clients’ circumstances, following protocols to treat all cases individually and justly without assumption or unintentional aggression or additional trauma. •H ighlight the credentials and talent of our therapists providing services. For the knowledge and comfort of our clients and the recognition of professional staff, we will emphasize the education, credentials and excellence of those providing care and support services.
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O P E R AT I O N A L E X C E L L E N C E a vision for seamless and staff-supportive operations
A commitment to continuous improvement is not just about efficiency and performance, it’s about our culture. Every aspect of operations should provide the support and confidence team members need to feel great about their contribution to mission impact. We don’t do this work because it’s easy; we do it because it makes a lifechanging difference for others, and ourselves.
Our primary objectives: • Continually assess needs for new or revised policies and procedures. These steps will aid our successful practice of important policy: updating the Employee Handbook; new processes are to be written into policy that is clear and easy to follow; policies are shared with staff on a regular basis to ensure we are formally educated and reminded of our guiding procedures; and our Board of Directors will annually review and approve Center for Child Counseling policies.
our clients, our culture: REALIZE. RECOGNIZE. RESPOND.
• Provide regular opportunities for staff feedback to continually improve processes and satisfaction. Our culture embraces staff sharing positive ideas and suggestions for improving the workplace and its operations. Criticism and feedback will be given and received in a safe space of honesty, respect, and good faith for the benefit of our agency. • Review, revise, and build our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in our Data Dashboard. Continuing our move toward a streamlined management system, we will offer regular training and communication
on the dashboard. Adding updated KPIs to the dashboard provides greater measurement capability. • Integrate TIEL (Trauma-Informed Equity Lens) through all aspects of our work culture. This requires more than adopting a list of tasks, we are making a mental shift in everything we do every day to ensure equity for our staff and the families and communities we serve. We approach TIEL as a cultural process rather than a destination.
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S U S TA I N A B L E G R O W T H a vision for abundant and lasting mission support
Funding is the framework of every organization serving a cause. The Center for Child Counseling mission entirely relies on our ability to remain financially secure. A healthy and sustainable budget also allows us to expand our services and reach and provides more freedom to pursue new goals and growth. We support and acknowledge our development staff and leaders, doing our part to contribute to this critically important and life-sustaining aspect of our work.
Our primary objectives: • Diversify revenue streams. Development staff will continuously cultivate aligned opportunities in philanthropy, enterprise, and partnerships that increase and diversify our funding. • Promote understanding and adoption of the Center for Child Counseling Business Model. Our culture promotes all teams owning the business of making our nonprofit run successfully. Each staff member must recognize their part in our basic operations and their importance to our strength and stability. • Create an engaged and active board in fundraising. The Center for Child Counseling Board of Directors will build a greater culture of giving, obtaining training and coaching as needed to strengthen their role and responsibility in the philanthropic endeavors of our mission. Board relationships and connections will be leveraged to build a wider net of funding opportunities.
• Promote planned giving opportunities. Legacy giving will be promoted and pursued with greater emphasis, developing a robust and compelling new channel of philanthropy. • Grow financial reserves. A deliberate plan for increasing reserves for long-term sustainability will be drafted, approved, and set in motion.
OUR SUSTAINABLE FUTURE