Noteworthy Tidbits

The Minnesota Council of Child Caring Agencies (MCCCA) board of directors selected Pastor Henry and Kathy Bonner for its annual “Foster Care Provider of the Year” award. The Bonner’s have been licensed foster parents with Volunteers of America–Minnesota Foster Care program for 25 years.

Five staff members recently received full scholarships from the Alliance for Children and Families to complete the Certificate in Aging program of the Boston University School of Social Work’s Institute of Geriatric Social Work (IGSW). They are Angie Akenson, Scott Fridley, Patricia Jones, Rhonda Peterson, and Dorothy Wilson.

Morgon Mae Schultz, a volunteer writing tutor in the Adult Writing Class for our Adult High School Diploma program, was recognized as “Literacy Leader” by the Minnesota Literacy Council.

Corrections Today, a peer reviewed journal, published a paper entitled, “A Treatment Assisted Recovery Model for Victims of Prostitution and Trafficking” in the October issue authored by Bill Nelson, Director of our Correctional Services. The paper focuses on an outcome study of 126 graduates of our Women’s Recovery Center (WRC).

Alice Tennis, Vice-President of our Senior Services, has been accepted in the Volunteers of America national organization Executive Development Program. Twenty-five participants were selected among national and local office executives for a two-year training program which will include a 360-evaluation, mentorship, coaching, monthly conference calls, a one-week session at Notre Dame University’s Mendoza College of Business and an internship.

Avanti Center for Girls hosted the annual statewide supervisors conference for the Minnesota Council of Child Caring Agencies (MCCCA) in May which was attended by 65 professionals.

A total of 21 students from our SALT High School and Opportunity High School participated in the STEP-UP summer jobs program through the City of Minneapolis’ AchieveMpls.STEP-Up interns are competitively selected and complete comprehensive work readiness training before being placed in jobs at hospitals, law firms, corporate offices and other Minneapolis businesses.

Our Education Center received a grant for the “Picturing America” curriculum from the National Endowment for the Arts to encourage interest in American History. The curriculum uses historical art to teach students about American History. Lesson plans, large laminated posters and electronic resources were included in the package.

Atashi Acharya, ACSW, LICSW, the director of our Senior Mental Health Services, video-taped a training session on Senior Mental Health Issues as part of a federally funded grant project to offer on-line training with CEUs to health and social service professionals at the request of the School of Social Work of the University of Minnesota. Additionally, Ms. Acharya provided two training sessions via statewide video-conference entitled “Mental Illness is not part of normal Aging” at the request of the Minnesota Department of Human Services and the Minnesota Board on Aging. Close to 725 participated from statewide locations and another 120 persons who could not attend requested copies of the power-point hand-outs.

Our Opportunity High School received a grant from the Minnesota Humanities Commission distribution of 150 copies of English/Somali books to students on Family Day to encourage reading at home.