Since its inception, Henry Booth House (HBH) has provided holistic, integrated child development and family services. It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit social service agency created by the Chicago Ethical Humanist Society in 1899 (Henry Booth House, 2021). The organization has a 122-year social services legacy of providing early childhood learning as well as direct services to families and children in more than 21 Chicago communities (Henry Booth House, 2021). Henry Booth House has more than 75 early childhood professionals, and the goal is to intervene with the highest quality programs and services as early as possible (Henry Booth House, 2021). Despite being challenged by COVID-19, the organization remains true to its goal to assist low-income Chicago families.
Vision, Mission and Program Goals
The vision of HBH is to be recognized as a leader in creating sustainable social change by assisting families, children, and communities in breaking the poverty cycle and empowering people to achieve lifelong goals. The organization is dedicated to its mission of improving life quality for families in economically diverse Chicago communities through integrated and comprehensive early childhood learning, social services, and family health. The services and programs of the organization include Early Head Start, Head Start, and Early Head Start Care Partnerships services in communities like Douglas, Greater Grand Crossing Englewood, Chicago lawn, Uptown, Morgan Park, South Shore, Austin, Kenwood New City Hegewisch, Humboldt Park and Auburn Gresham (Fredrick, 2018). Overall, the organization’s primary goal is to help peer families attain their future goals by accessing good health services and quality education for children with a sustainable source of income (Ortega et al., 2022). The services provided by Henry Booth House are currently available in every part of Chicago.
Another goal of HBH is to expand access to high-quality childcare in poor communities. The organization targets the children that are malnourished due to poverty and also assist the teenage mothers to raise their underweight infants. Low birth weight infant rate is the current leading cause of infant mortality. These underweight infants risk developing many complications, including developmental and medical problems in later life. Moreover, teenage mothers are less educated and have poor health, making them rely on public assistance. There are well trained employees to carry the mission of the organization to the residents of Chicago (Ortega et al., 2022). They work to alleviate the stress experienced by parents when they plan to place their children in preschool centers while working on attending school.
Community Profile
To further discuss HBH, it is worthy to review its community profile. The organization serves around 599 children and families in the center-based program options (Henry Booth House, 2021). The services are also extended to children between the ages of 0 and 5 in high-need areas with different capacities. Home-based programs also serve around 24 families in the Early Head Start home visiting program (Henry Booth House, 2021). By the year 2019, about 18% of the households were ranked as living in poverty (Fredrick, 2018). Additionally, about 24% of the children aged 0 to 5 years were found to be living in poverty. In terms of extreme poverty, Chicago is the third highest, and the residents live below the poverty line more than the ten largest cities in the USA (Henry Booth House, 2021). From 2008 to 2012, the average percentage of residents with income below the poverty level was 22.1 %, higher than Illinois’s rate, according to the US Census Bureau in 2021 (Ortega et al., 2022). From this data, it can be inferred that HBH primarily works with low-income families, especially those with children.
Program Investigation
Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
Among HBH’s main strengths is knowledge, whereby the organization understands the region and the clients perfectly well. Chicago is full of diverse people, and the language spoken there consists of different languages. Therefore, the children and families enrolled in Henry Booth House through its five programs represent all those differences. They also enjoy a positive working connection with their customers. There are employees who are able to relate to the clients on an individual level, so the language barrier is not an issue in the organization. Finally, HBH also offers the best services, making them rise above their competitors in the field. The strengths of HBH can therefore be summed up as their proficiency at their services, as well as their connection with the community.
On the other hand, the weaknesses of HBH include the capacity, whereby if the centers were to have many clients, they will require more space offer services because of the limitation of space due to high demand. Additionally, opportunities include training, where regular training is offered in the administrative centers. Moreover, the organization can partner with other health providers to offer temporary services to the clients and community (Vlados, 2019). HBH has a comprehensive community partnership with Mobile Care Chicago, which provides medical services, and Karen Hackworth Nutritional Services for all sectors within HBH (Ortega et al., 2022). They also partner with mental health consultants, nurse consultants, disability and transitional support providers, and St. Bernard pediatric mobile unit providers. In other words, the main opportunities of HBH are training and multiple services they provide, while the weakness of the organization lies in its capacity.
Over the period of its services, HBH has encountered certain threats. The primary threat is COVID-19, which has caused a lot of infections and deaths, crippling the provision of services at the centers (Vlados, 2019) COVID-19 caused a reduction in enrolment, making people uncomfortable moving to the outside world and sending children to school. Along with other early childhood programs, HBH experienced the impacts of the coronavirus, making both houses stop in-person services to adopt the new normal of reaching out to families and educating children.
Target Audience
The organization’s target audience is comprised of low-income families with children. According to the program report of the year 2020-2021, HBH registers a high number of poverty statistics for families and children who are below the poverty guidelines, while receiving public assistance (Henry Booth House, 2021). The reason for choosing families and children as HBH’s target audience is that poverty levels are still high. The report given for the year 2020–2021 indicated 27 % of enrolled parents identified employment and finance as significant stressors to their families (Henry Booth House, 2021). The majority of parents listed job training and education as family interests. (Fredrick, 2018). As of 2021, HBH offers services to 7 homeless families (Henry Booth House, 2021). Therefore, it can be stated that HBH’s priorities regarding the target audience are influenced by the needs of the community.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the mission, strengths, and target audience of HBH have been covered. The organization aims to curb the challenges of illiteracy and poverty among the people and community of Chicago. The company partners with other health providers to provide excellent health services to its clients. Moreover, HBH has reached out to many families, assisting teenage mothers and infants born underweight. Nonetheless, the organization has faced significant challenges with the emergence of COVID-19, which has discouraged many families from seeking help from centers. However, the excellent service provided by HBH, as well as its integrity and competence, leave no doubt that the organization will succeed in its mission to help the vulnerable low-income families of Chicago.
References
‌Henry Booth House (2021). Henry Booth House community assessment for program years 2021-2026.
Fredrick, E. (2018). Death, violence, health, and poverty in Chicago. Harvard Public Health Review, 19, 1-25. Web.
Ortega, R. M., Olawale, R. G., & Mora, A. S. (2022). Charles D. Garvin: social justice and social group work. Social Work with Groups, 1-7. Web.
Vlados, C. (2019). On a correlative and evolutionary SWOT analysis. Journal of Strategy and Management, 12, 347-363. Web.